Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]

MESSAGES FROM THE QUEEN

INCOME TAX

The Vice-Chamberlain of the Household reported Her Majesty's Answer to the Addresses, as follows:
I have received your Addresses praying that the Double Taxation Relief (Taxes on Income) (Canada) Order 1985, the Double Taxation Relief (Taxes on Income) (Soviet Union) Order 1985, the Double Taxation Relief (Taxes on Income (Norway) Order 1985, the Double Taxation Relief (Taxes on Income) (Finland) Order 1985 and the Double Taxation Relief (Taxes on Income) (Ivory Coast) Order 1985 be made in the form of the drafts laid before your House.
I will comply with your request.

SUMMER TIME

I have received your Address praying that the Summer Time Order 1985 be made in the form of the draft laid before your House.
I will comply with your request.

PRIVATE BUSINESS

GREATER LONDON COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS) BILL

Order for Third Reading read.

Queen's Consent, on behalf of the Crown, signified.

Read the Third time, and passed.

FRASERBURGH HARBOUR ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL

FRASERBURGH HARBOUR (No. 2) ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL

FRASERBURGH HARBOUR (No. 3) ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL

Read the Third time, and passed.

PETERHEAD HARBOURS (SOUTH BAY DEVELOPMENT) ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

To be read a Second time upon Thursday 12 December.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOME DEPARTMENT

Shops Bill

Mr. Patrick Thompson: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many representations he has received concerning the Shops Bill [Lords].

The Minister of State Home Office (Mr. David Waddington): We have received 6,688 representations concerning the Shops Bill [Lords] since it was published.

Mr. Thompson: I thank my hon. and learned Friend for that reply. Does he agree that these representations confirm general support for reform of the Shops Act 1950, but overwhelming opposition to the idea of unrestricted free trading? In this instance, does he accept that people must be right, where a small committee may well be wrong and that I cannot support proposals that are against custom and practice and the country's Christian tradition?

Mr. Waddington: In my experience, people write to Members of Parliament when they disapprove of legislation introduced by the Government, but they rarely write and thank us when they agree with what we are doing. In the main, the letters that we have received have obviously come from a vociferous minority.

Mr. Ray Powell: Why do we have appeals for contributions towards the preservation of St. Margaret's church, Westminster, and churches throughout the country when the Government are doing everything possible to persuade people with a tradition of 500 years of Christian belief to abandon that belief and to shop and work on Sundays? Are the Government now opposed to the Church of England, and are they abandoning that Church because it has become more Marxist or more honest?

Mr. Waddington: Apart from the fact that in many of our cathedrals Sunday trading is pursued illegally, there seems to be little connection between the hon. Gentleman's question and that on the Order Paper.

Mr. Butler: My hon. and learned Friend referred to our constituents writing in and making representations direct to the Government. Is it not the case that the volume of letters being received is much greater than on any other subject, in my experience? Will he take into account what people are saying, which is, "Keep Sunday different"? That being so, unless their Lordships, in their wisdom, amend the Bill, will he withdraw it?

Mr. Waddington: The halfway houses recommended by organisations such as Keep Sunday Different are beguiling at first glance, but the Auld committee looked at them. The Jubilee Centre suggests a new list of goods, but has come up with one based on no principle. Why one should be able to buy tobacco on Sunday but not a plant pot, according to the Jubilee Centre, I do not know.

Mr. James Lamond: We have been made aware that the Minister does not like letters from hon. Members, but surely he will not brush aside 6,600 letters as a small vociferous minority. How can the Government expect to be believed when the chairman of the Conservative party preaches that there is a serious decline in moral and


religious standards, while in the same week the Government introduce a Bill such as this in the House of Lords?

Mr. Waddington: I assure the hon. Gentleman that I like many of the letters that I receive. Many letters have been written to us during the last month. I remind the hon. Member that about 7,000 representations were made to the Auld committee and that a vast volume of evidence was considered by the committee, the composition of which was never objected to at the time. All these matters were studied in great depth. We are studying carefully all the representations that we are receiving.

Mrs. Ann Winterton: Is my hon. and learned Friend aware that many small retail outlets in my constituency and elsewhere, many of which are family run, consider that complete deregulation Sunday trading will seriously affect their prospects? Do not these proposals make a mockery of the Government's declared policy to create an environment in which small businesses such as these can thrive and prosper?

Mr. Waddington: Some of what has been said has unduly alarmed small businesses, but the experience overseas leads one to believe that small businesses can operate flexibly to meet demand in a way that large businesses cannot, and that is the explanation for the fact that the number of small businesses in Sweden has grown since deregulation in 1972.

Criminal Statistics

Mr. Eastham: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what proportion of recorded notifiable offences were cleared up by the police in England and Wales in 1979 and 1984, respectively.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Douglas Hurd): The clear-up rate fell from 41 per cent. in 1979 to 35 per cent. in 1984, but the actual number of offences cleared up rose by 17 per cent. to 1.2 million.

Mr. Eastham: Is the Minister aware that many of these cases are cleared up thanks to the public rather than the police? Therefore, is it not essential that we maintain the public's confidence? Is the Minister aware that a recent MORI poll showed that three out of five people believe that there should be more police accountability through local councils? Would not such a move improve policing?

Mr. Hurd: I am sure the hon. Gentleman is right in the first part of his question, and that success against crime depends upon co-operation between police and public. As to the second part, I point out that, in addition to the figures that I quoted, 75 per cent. of all offences of violence against the person are cleared up, and 91 per cent. of murders.

Mr. Ward: Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is much that the public could still do to help the police, particularly through such organisations as Crimewatch and by instantly alerting police of problems and not passing by on the other side of the road, as seems to happen so often?

Mr. Hurd: We are only at the beginning of crime prevention as an effective cause. My hon. Friend mentioned Crimewatch. I agree with him that the number of schemes has doubled during the year. We hope that there will a great many more.

Mr. Alex Carlile: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell the House what is the clear-up rate of offences of insider dealing on the Stock Exchange, bearing in mind that of 100 such offences reported by the Stock Exchange to the Director of Public Prosecutions, only two were proceeded with in the courts?

Mr. Hurd: I cannot answer the hon. and learned Gentleman's question without notice.

Mr. Kaufman: In view of the serious decline in the clear-up rate during the period of office of this Government, why are they cutting the amount of money to be spent on policing in the next financial year?

Mr. Hurd: We are not doing so; we are increasing it. In statements in the country the right hon. Gentleman has quoted a figure of 2.5 per cent., which he alleges is a decrease. He is not comparing like with like. He is comparing the likely outturn this year, which includes an obviously unplanned but large amount for police overtime during the miners' dispute, with our plans for next year. We are planning for an increase. What is more, the provisional figures that we published in the autumn statement will be looked at again between Departments to take account of events and needs since then.

Prison Population

Mr. Jim Callaghan: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was the prison population of England and Wales at the most recent convenient date; and by what percentage this has risen since the same date in 1979.

Mr. Hurd: On 20 November 1985 the prison population was 46,930. On 30 November 1979 it was 43,036. That represents an increase of 9 per cent.

Mr. Callaghan: Is the Secretary of State aware that, per head of the population, the United Kingdom sends more people to prison than any other major Western European power, with the exception of Turkey? Is he aware also of the dramatic increase in the number of people in the United Kingdom who have been sent to prison during the last 10 years? Is he aware further that it costs £12,000 to send a person to prison in the United Kingdom? As four out of five prisoners are sent to prison for non-violent crimes, would it not be more sensible to give non-custodial sentences to those who are guilty of less serious crimes?

Mr. Hurd: The hon. Gentleman seems to suppose that I send people to prison. I do not send people to prison. The courts send people to prison, having listened to the evidence. For serious cases it is right that there should be serious sentences, which often means custodial sentences. I agree with the hon. Gentleman to the extent that for the less serious cases the courts should look carefully at alternatives before awarding custodial sentences.

Mr. Rowe: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the staffing levels in a prison in my constituency have fallen to the point where it has become almost impossible for the prison to continue the regime for which it was set up? May I ask him to look at this matter with great care?

Mr. Hurd: I shall look at the point that my hon. Friend has raised. In general, we are providing this year for an increase in prison staffing.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: Does the right hon. Gentleman not accept that the record prison population over which his Government preside imposes considerable strains on both prisoners and staff and that this problem should be dealt with by developing alternatives? Any response which means the closure of prison workshops, as has been suggested, will be bitterly resented and opposed by those both inside and outside the prison service and be regarded as a return to the custodial and punitive penal system, from which we thought we had got away a long time ago?

Mr. Hurd: The hon. Gentleman knows that there have been many problems with prison industries—over the products, the firms with which contracts have been signed and the staff requirements involved. We are reviewing the matter, but we have not yet reached a decision.

Mr. Greg Knight: Does the figure that my right hon. Friend has given include those who have been sentenced to terms of imprisonment but who for the time being are unlawfully at large? Is he aware that in Derbyshire no fewer than 72 people have absconded this year from just one prison—Sudbury? Should this not be a cause for concern? Will my right hon. Friend look into it urgently?

Mr. Hurd: Certainly.

Plastic Bullets

Mr. Tony Lloyd: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what discussions he has had with the chief constable of Greater Manchester about the use of plastic bullets.

Mr. Hurd: My hon. Friend the Minister of State discussed the availability of plastic baton rounds with the chief constable of Greater Manchester and the chairman of the police authority when he visited Manchester on 18 November. Both the chief constable and the chairman, together with the chief constables of West Midlands, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire and the chairmen of their police authorities, are due to attend a meeting at the Home Office this afternoon to discuss the matter with my officials.

Mr. Lloyd: Given that the Home Secretary has told the House that he values the relationship between the police and the public, does he accept that the Government and police response to the economic and social disaster in our inner cities of ever more authoritarian policing is inappropriate, because it alienates the public on whom good policing depends? As my constituents risk being killed by these extremely dangerous weapons, is it not right that Parliament should be allowed the opportunity to debate the issue before plastic bullets are released on to the streets of Greater Manchester or elsewhere?

Mr. Hurd: I hope that it will never be necessary for the police to use plastic baton rounds, on our streets. Earlier this year we had disturbances which were fierce beyond any precedents. When a chief officer of police concludes that he needs plastic baton rounds, and Her Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary agrees, it is right that they should be available. If the Opposition disagree with that proposition, they have a remedy in their hands.

Mr. Mark Carlisle: While I share my right hon. Friend's hope that those bullets will never have to be used, does he agree that in the end the chief constable is responsible for protecting the members of his force in

carrying out their duties and responsibilities? Will he therefore ensure that chief constables get every support in making any reasonable request for any equipment that they feel they need for that purpose?

Mr. Hurd: I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend. We are dealing with the protection of both police officers and peaceful citizens. No hon. Member would feel that it was right for the police to be exposed to the sort of attack that they endured at Tottenham without having some recourse, where necessary, to this type of protection.

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: Does the Home Secretary accept that the vast majority of people in Greater Manchester do not want plastic bullets to be used, and are worried about the information that they have received about their use in Northern Ireland and the loss of life and injuries that they have caused? One of the major lessons from Northern Ireland is that if plastic bullets are to be used, the police must be extremely well trained in their use. At present, the problem in Greater Manchester is that there is no proper policing because of the number of policemen who are undergoing training. Does the Home Secretary agree that it is crazy to train policemen to use plastic bullets, which we all hope will never be used, rather than having policemen on the beat, giving the service that the people of Greater Manchester want?

Mr. Hurd: That is a rather confused supplementary question. The hon. Gentleman first says that training will be necessary, and then complains that it is taking place. It is easy to produce the figures for those killed by plastic baton rounds in Northern Ireland, but it is not so easy to produce the figures for those whose lives have been saved by them. Plastic bullets are much less dangerous than live bullets.

Sir Edward Gardner: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Police Act 1964 makes it clear that the responsibility for the control and direction of police forces remains with the chief constable? Does he further agree that that principle deserves his utmost support?

Mr. Hurd: I agree with my right hon. and learned Friend, and I have made that clear.

Detainees (Police and Court Cells)

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what has been the highest number of persons held in police and court cells on one night so far in 1985; and what was the number of (a) men, (b) women and (c) juveniles held in police and court cells at the latest available date.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. David Mellor): The highest number of prisoners held in police and court cells so far in 1985 was 260, on the night of 18–19 February. That was a direct result of short-lived industrial action at Wormwood Scrubs about the handling of prisoners suffering from AIDS. On the night of 4–5 December there were 137 prisoners in police cells, many of whom were there because of industrial action at HM prison Pentonville.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: Is it not disgraceful, wrong and immoral for a so-called civilised society to hold unconvicted and unsentenced people below ground in dungeon-like conditions, with no access to washing,


education and recreation facilities or visitors, and, in the process, to turn police officers into turnkeys? When will the Home Secretary live up to the promise of his predecessor to abolish the routine use of court and police cells to hold innocent people by the end of 1983?

Mr. Mellor: The ending of the routine use of police cells has already occurred. In the seven weeks from the beginning of October—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman asked a question, and he might at least have the courtesy to listen to the answer. We appreciate that he is a bit highly strung at the moment, but I hope that he will listen to the answer. From the beginning of October this year, until the third week in November, never more than 40 people were held in police cells. We are going through an exceptional few days. In 1983, 280 prisoners, on average, were held each night in police cells. By the end of the 1984–85 financial year that figure was down to fewer than 20. That is a formidable step in the right direction, which no amount of jeering from the hon. Gentleman can overcome.

Mr. Robert Banks: Does my hon. Friend agree that some of those one-night imprisonments are for drunkenness? Does he agree also that it would be as well to try to find other arrangements to relieve the police service of these cases and to give proper counselling and advice to the people who fall into that trap?

Mr. Mellor: I am happy to tell my hon. Friend, whose interest in those problems is well known, that the number of people prosecuted for alcohol-related offences is falling dramatically as a result of the diversionary policies that we have been pursuing.

Civil Defence (Local Authority Communications)

Mr. Aspinwall: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has received the final report of the working party on local authority communications.

Mr. Giles Shaw: No, but I expect to receive it shortly.

Mr. Aspinwall: What steps are being taken to provide direct communication links between county control centres and local BBC radio and television stations?

Mr. Shaw: As my hon. Friend will be aware, operations under the civil defence provision include the completion of the experimental trials of the communications equipment. We expect to be able to complete them for internal communications between the control centres and the local authorities, but we have no plans at the moment in relation to the broadcasting authorities.

Trespass

Mr. Cash: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will introduce legislation to deal with difficulties relating to civil and criminal trespass arising from roving convoys of persons and vehicles.

Mr. Giles Shaw: My right hon. Friend has no present plan to introduce legislation on trespass. However, proposals in the Public Order Bill should help to deal with certain of the difficulties to which my hon. Friend refers.

Mr. Cash: Does my hon. Friend agree that the incredible damage caused, costing Staffordshire ratepayers about £80,000, when a peace convoy recently invaded common and open spaces in that part of the world

should be stopped, and that the criminal law is a way of dealing with such problems? An essential feature of open space and common land law is that it should be available to all people equally. People entering such land, entrenching themselves, and going from there marauding and stealing other people's property is a matter appropriate for the criminal law and should be stopped at once.

Mr. Shaw: I fully understand my hon. Friend's anxiety about the events that occurred in Staffordshire. He will be aware that in the Public Order Bill, subject to its passage through the House, there are provisions enabling conditions to be imposed upon static assemblies. I hope that the improvement he seeks will be achieved in that way.

Mr. Hickmet: Does my hon. Friend agree that while trespass has not been a criminal offence, the time has now come to deal with the so-called animal liberation people and those representing so-called animal rights organisations, and to amend the criminal law to cover them when they trespass on private land and cause criminal damage and personal injury to people engaging in their lawful pursuits?

Mr. Shaw: My hon. Friend is correct. People seek to disrupt and enter private land and cause major damage to property and some injury to others, and I assure him that the police and the Government are considering carefully what can be done to toughen the law in that direction.

Licensing Laws

Mr. Andrew MacKay: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the future of the licensing laws.

Mr. Hurd: I want to examine among other things the full report of the Office of Population Censuses and Survey's study of drinking in Scotland before deciding whether relaxations should be introduced in the permitted opening hours of licensed premises in England and Wales.

Mr. MacKay: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is high time we relaxed our licensing laws, bearing in mind the success of the experiment in Scotland? Is he aware that such a relaxation would have wide support throughout the country?

Mr. Hurd: I have an open mind on that matter. I hope that my hon. Friend will not find me cowardly if I say that I should like to feel a little more sure than I am this afternoon that if we moved in that direction we should have substantial support, not just in both Houses of Parliament, but throughout the country.

Mr. Skinner: What's all this here then! Is the Home Secretary saying that despite the comments of the chairman of the Tory party the other day about departing from Christian values, the permissiveness of the 1960s, and so forth, he will not only vote for Sunday trading, but will relax the licensing laws as well? I do not know what the Tory party is coming to.

Mr. Hurd: If having a drink in a pub offends the hon. Gentleman's idea of Christianity, he is a long way away.

Mr. Skinner: It is Tebbit, not me.

Sir Bernard Braine: In view of the known connection between levels of alcohol consumption and alcohol abuse,


and the known connection between alcohol abuse and crime, road accidents, marital break-up and child abuse, as a Select Committee has testified, will my right hon. Friend take note that any change in the licensing laws which does not take account of those important and known facts will be bitterly resisted by some of us?

Mr. Hurd: Well, there we are. I think that confirms that I was right to be a little cautious in my earlier reply. It is surely right that we should look at the full evidence from Scotland when it becomes available to see what has happened there since drinking hours became more generous.

Mr. Alex Carlile: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that one reason for the large number of serious traffic accidents late at night is what is known as the stop tap syndrome? Does he agree that at the very least closing hours should be drastically amended to avoid that syndrome?

Mr. Hurd: The hon. and learned Gentleman is on to a good point. Police in some cities confirm that one of their problems is due to a large number of pubs in a relatively small area all closing at the same time.

Mr. Gregory: When will my right hon. Friend be in a position to recommend changes? Is he aware that there was widespread surprise that the Queen's Speech contained no proposals for change? Is he further aware that changes will lead to increased employment and that the Secretary of State for Scotland will confirm that the incidence of alcoholism has diminished enormously in Scotland since licensing laws were relaxed?

Mr. Hurd: I believe that the Scots intend to go public with the full report in February. We shall need to consider the situation fairly quickly after that.

Mr. Soley: Does the Home Secretary accept that it will be much easier to look at this issue effectively if it is part of an overall package to cope with the problems of alcohol abuse, including reversal of the Department's action in closing detoxification centres, which has resulted in more alcoholics being turned out on to the streets, despite the denial of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State some minutes ago?

Mr. Hurd: The hon. Gentleman's question goes rather wide. We shall have to consider whether opening the pubs for a little longer will increase the intake of alcohol to a damaging extent rather than simply allowing people to do a little more of their drinking in pubs and a little less at home with drink bought at supermarkets.

Criminal Statistics

Mr. Fatchett: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was the absolute and the percentage increase in the number of offences of criminal damage recorded by the police between 1979 and 1984.

Mrs. Clwyd: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was the absolute and the percentage increase in the number of notifiable offences recorded by the police between 1979 and 1984.

Dr. McDonald: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was the absolute and the percentage increase in the number of violent offences recorded by the police between 1979 and 1984.

Mr. Mellor: Notifiable offences recorded by the police increased by 963,000, or 38 per cent., between 1979 and 1984. In the same period, recorded offences of violence against the person increased by just over 19,000, or 20 per cent., and of criminal damage by 177,000, or 55 per cent.

Mr. Fatchett: To what extent does the Minister see those shocking figures as representing the failure of Government policy?

Mr. Mellor: Plainly, it is disappointing that the increase during our period of office has been in line with the increase in the years since the last war, which has averaged about 6 per cent. in recorded offences. As the hon. Gentleman knows, Government policy is geared to ensure that more crimes are cleared up, and 200,000 more offences were cleared up last year than in 1979. Our policy is also geared to ensure that the criminal justice system has the necessary resources and that there is enhanced public confidence in the system. I believe that we have made considerable strides towards that aim, although we should all like to see a decrease in recorded crime figures.

Mrs. Clwyd: Does the Minister recall advertisements by Saatchi and Saatchi on behalf of the Conservative party in 1979 claiming that the Tory party would be more effective in combating crime than would the Labour party? If so, does he now agree that those claims were grossly untrue?

Mr. Mellor: Far from it. I suspect that any opinion poll that is taken—we know of some that have been—will show much greater confidence in the Conservative party on matters of law and order than in the Labour party. As long as the Labour party tolerates people such as Bernie Grant and Ted Knight, that will continue to be the case.

Dr. McDonald: Does the Minister agree that the figures that he has just announced to the House show that such confidence, if it does exist among the public, is totally misplaced? Should he not now, on behalf of the Government, accept responsibility for the vast increase in crime and recognise that it is at least in part due to high unemployment, cuts in housing expenditure and inner city deprivation?

Mr. Mellor: The hon. Lady is railing against the facts. I have already given an account of our view on the relevance of the increase in recorded crime of our policies. I appreciate that it is frustrating for the hon. Lady that the public see the election of a Labour Government as likely to lead to a reduction in law and order in Britain, but I suspect that that will continue to be the case for the foreseeable future.

Mr. Hickmet: Law and order in Britain is maintained by respect of the rule of law and of the police. The Labour party is clearly anti-police, as shown by its attitude on police committees controlled by the Labour party. It is also shown by its attitude to some of the inner city riots and responses by some Labour council leaders. What effect does my hon. Friend think that that example will have on the youth of the country and those who engage in crimes of violence?

Mr. Mellor: I agree with everything that my hon. Friend has said. The example is a very bad one.

Mr. Kaufman: Is it not a fact that the Government came to office on a pledge to fight and reduce crime, but that crime has risen massively under every heading?


There are now 1 million more serious offences a year than there were when the Government came to office. Is it not a fact that, despite the attempts of the Home Secretary to mislead the House this afternoon, in real terms the Government are reducing the amount of money that is to be spent on policing? Is that not the effect of the public expenditure White Paper and the autumn statement? Why do the Government cut the money for policing when we have 1 million more serious offences a year under Thatcherism?

Mr. Mellor: I am sorry to have to correct the right hon. Gentleman, but if he compares what was scheduled to be spent and what is due to be spent next year, he will find that the increase that is budgeted for is 6 per cent. That is a 2 per cent. growth in resources for the police in real terms. No Government can undertake to abolish sin, and we have not sought to do so. We have said that under this Government the forces of law and order are much better able to respond than under Labour. If the right hon. Gentleman looks back to 1977, when police morale was at its lowest and there was even talk of police strikes, he will find that that is the case.

Channel Islands

Mr. Foulkes: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on Lord Glenarthur's recent official visit to the Channel Islands.

Mr. Giles Shaw: My noble Friend visited the islands of Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney and Sark during the period 13 to 16 November. The main purpose of his visit was to acquaint himself with the islands and to meet informally the lieutenant governors and representatives of the island authorities for general discussions on a range of matters of mutual interest and concern. He found the visit to be most useful and informative.

Mr. Foulkes: Is the Minister not aware, from the petitions and many letters that he has received, of the great concern on the islands about tax evasion by companies such as Gomba and the repressive housing laws? The noble Lord was quoted in an interview in the Jersey Evening Post as saying that everything in the garden was lovely. Is the noble Lord unbelievably naive, or is he covering up for the unpatriotic British, including some Tory Members, who are using the tax havens to make money?

Mr. Speaker: Order. Before the Minister answers, I say to the hon. Gentleman that it is unworthy to talk about unpatriotic Members.

Hon. Members: Withdraw.

Mr. Foulkes: What did I say that upset you, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Speaker: I think that it upset the House. "Unpatriotic" is not a word that we use of each other here.

Mr. Foulkes: I shall withdraw "unpatriotic" and insert "Conservative".

Mr. Shaw: As the hon. Gentleman knows, the islands are responsible for their own financial affairs and for the supervision provided for by their own legislation. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer is satisfied that he has adequate powers to protect the interests of Her Majesty's Government.

Manchester University (Ministerial Visit)

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will call for a report from the chief constable of Manchester on his response to the independent inquiry panel report on the policing of the then Home Secretary's visit to Manchester university on 1 March.

Mr. Giles Shaw: It would not be right for me to comment, or take any other action, until the investigation being conducted by the deputy chief constable of South Wales has been completed and the results have been considered by the Police Complaints Authority and, if appropriate, the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Mr. Bennett: Does the Minister agree that it was extremely arrogant of the chief constable not to agree to a proper public inquiry into the principles involved in the policing of that incident, and that it was particularly arrogant of him to refuse to co-operate with the inquiry that was set up or to comment on the serious allegations that were made? Is it not clear that inquiries by the Police Complaints Authority can have little credibility when it has taken it so long to come forward with any information at all?

Mr. Shaw: It is anything but arrogant for the chief constable of Greater Manchester police to take note of the fact that the provisions of part IX of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act are in force and that he should, therefore, comply with the decision of the Police Complaints Authority to investigate police complaints in accordance with the Act. That seems to be a wholly appropriate step for him to take.

Mr. Favell: Is my hon. Friend aware of a leaflet, of which a sponsor was the Labour party, circulating in the union at Manchester before the Home Secretary's visit, exhorting members to
Stop Leon Brittan from speaking in our union on Friday 1st March: meet on the union steps at 6.30 pm for a mass picket to keep him out"?
On the back, the leaflet said; "Paint him red!", as they did to the Secretary for State for Defence. Is my hon. Friend proposing to help the Labour party make Manchester university a no-go area for anyone holding views different from themselves?

Mr. Shaw: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's comments. Hon. Members might care to note that in the case to which the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) drew attention there was a major police presence, but when the Minister of State paid a visit he deliberately required that there be no such police presence and he was forcibly prevented from addressing the students' union in that university. Is it not an astonishing fact that the freedom of speech that we cherish so greatly in the House is not available in the University of Manchester?

Drug Misuse

Mr. Sackville: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the progress of the Government's campaign against drug misuse.

Mr. Mellor: The next stage in our continuing education and information campaign, which is now being


independently evaluated, will be the release shortly of video packages for professionals and young people. We are continuing to give the highest priority to our comprehensive strategy against drug misuse, and will shortly be introducing our Bill to confiscate the proceeds of drug trafficking.

Mr. Sackville: Is my hon. Friend aware that last year a sum of £300,000 was forfeited to Greater Manchester police on the conviction of two drug traffickers and that that money is still frozen? Will he give an assurance that the legislation that is introduced will not produce a legal bunfight, but will be workable, and that money forfeited will reach the public purse?

Mr. Mellor: It would be a rash Minister who said that any piece of forthcoming legislation would avoid a legal bunfight. In so far as it is possible to do so, we shall use our best endeavours to that end.

Mr. Corbett: Given the increasing misuse of hard drugs, will the Home Office increase, or decrease, the amount of money presently provided to some of the voluntary agencies that help with rehabilitation?

Mr. Mellor: As the hon. Gentleman knows, £17 million has been allocated for that purpose and 143 organisations have been supported, of which 60 come from the voluntary sector. I expect that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Health will have more to say on that before too long.

Mr. Meadowcroft: Is the Minister aware that many of the voluntary groups that are doing excellent work with drug addicts find that their future is threatened by the abolition of the metropolitan counties and the GLC? What representations has he made to his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment to secure the funding of these groups after 1 April?

Mr. Mellor: I do not accept the premise on which the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question is based.

Cinemas (Safety)

Mr. Hannam: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he expects to issue the Cinemas (Safety) Regulations 1985 and accompanying guidance; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Giles Shaw: Having listened carefully to the central bodies representing the disabled, with which we shall he holding further discussions, we hope to reach a mutually acceptable agreement soon on what might be included in the non-statutory guidance which will accompany the regulations. We shall not propose restrictions on the admission to cinemas either of unaccompanied blind persons or guide dogs. The only restriction contemplated for wheelchair users is that wheelchairs must not be placed where they might obstruct exit routes.

Mr. Hannam: I warmly welcome my hon. Friend's announcement on behalf of organisations representing the disabled, which were extremely concerned at the original proposals in the guidance notes. Will he give every possible assistance to ensure that cinema managers carry out the wishes laid down in the guidance notes, so that the disabled can be given as much access as possible to cinemas?

Mr. Shaw: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his welcome of this development. I note what he has to say about cinema management. However, I must remind him—I am sure that he is aware of this—that the management is responsible ultimately for the safety of its patrons. It decides whom it will admit, within the conditions of its licence.

Oral Answers to Questions — PRIME MINISTER

Engagements

Mr. Stanbrook: asked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 5 December.

The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): This morning I presided at a meeting of the Cabinet and had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further meetings later today.

Mr. Stanbrook: Does my right hon. Friend agree with our right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster that many social evils of our time derive from the permissive society promoted by liberal politicians in the 1960s and 1970s? If so, what are the Government's plans to combat these evils? Will the Government abandon their posture of neutrality on some issues and deliberate policy on others, which cause many to believe that our Christian way of life is in great danger?

The Prime Minister: I think my hon. Friend will agree that the speech of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster about the permissive society was far from neutralist. Indeed, it gave a firm lead in the direction in which I think my hon. Friend wishes to go. The Government have supported private Members' Bills on issues such as controlling video nasties and indecent displays. I hope that we shall continue to take that attitude.

Mr. Frank Cook: We are well aware of the Prime Minister's reputation of being extremely reluctant to withdraw from any opinion which she has expressed. I ask the right hon. Lady—[HON. MEMBERS: "Reading."]—to cast her mind back to 27 November 1984, 53 weeks ago today, when—this is where I shall read—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I think that this is when the hon. Gentleman will ask his question.

Mr. Cook: I crave your indulgence, Mr. Speaker. I was about to say that I shall express my attitude to that which appears on the piece of paper in my hand. On 27 November 1984 the Prime Minister expressed her hope that the Government would never forget the good work, loyalty and allegiance of those who have served this country. I ask the Prime Minister to consider what form that hope will take following the results of the Australian Royal Commission on nuclear tests at Maralinga.

The Prime Minister: The report to which the hon. Gentleman refers has only recently been published. We are studying it carefully. It comprises 16 chapters, 201 conclusions and seven recommendations. The Australian Government have stated that they will discuss with Her Majesty's Government those recommendations which affect the United Kingdom. I doubt whether the hon. Gentleman has read and absorbed the report so quickly.

Mr. McCusker: If the principles which govern the Prime Minister's attitude to disputed British terrritory are a desire for peace and reconciliation, why does she not enter into negotiations with the Argentine Government with a view to an Anglo-Argentine agreement which will have at its core an Anglo-Argentine conference, jointly chaired by a permanent Minister for the Malvinas and one of her own Ministers, with a permanent secretariat at Port Stanley, which will be able to discuss every matter concerned with the Falkland Islands? After all, there would be no sacrifice of sovereignty, would there?

The Prime Minister: I think, with respect, that the hon. Gentleman is right off beam. The people of Northern Ireland, like the people of the Falklands, to our way of thinking shall decide by majority where their future lies. That is and will remain enshrined in law.

Mr. Thurnham: asked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 5 December.

The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Thurnham: Will my right hon. Friend ensure that the extreme Left, which has hijacked Manchester council, will not succeed in its plans to hijack Manchester airport?

The Prime Minister: rose—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. I have the message. Members must ask questions for which the Prime Minister has responsibility. I really do not think that she has responsibility for that matter.

Mr. Kinnock: Will the Prime Minister tell us why the memorandum of understanding on British participation in star wars has not been submitted to the British Parliament for consideration?

The Prime Minister: It is still being negotiated. It is not customary to submit a memorandum of understanding to Parliament. It is customary to negotiate it and then for the Government to sign if they consider that the results are satisfactory.

Mr. Kinnock: Will the Prime Minister tell us whether there is to be any conclusion of such negotiations tomorrow? Does she recognise that there is a need and a strong desire on both sides of the House for Members to be able to express views and to ask questions? If negotiations are continuing, can she tell us whether the memorandum involves or will involve any binding agreement, whether any financial commitments have been made by the United States of America, and whether the Government are securing safeguards against the loss both of technology and of technologists in the event of an agreement being concluded? Why, in any case, is there a rush to sign now? Nobody else is showing such sycophantic haste as the right hon. Lady.

The Prime Minister: Some of the details—for example, the use of intellectual property which results from any research which we undertake under an SDI memorandum of understanding—are still being negotiated. It is very important to secure the right to that intellectual property. I am not in a position to say whether the agreement will be signed tomorrow. Its details are still being negotiated. I hope that it will be signed before Christmas.

Mr. Phillip Oppenheim: Will my right hon. Friend give thought later today to the fact that when the Greater London council recently decided to invest nearly £2 million in a fleet of 53 dial-a-ride minibuses, it chose to buy French vehicles despite the availability of comparable British vehicles? Is that what Socialists mean by supporting British industry?

The Prime Minister: I hope that, so long as British industry is competitive with others, people will support it fully.

Dr. Owen: Is it right to continue to hide behind the Crown Proceedings Act 1947 and make it impossible for British service men exposed to nuclear radiation to challenge the British Government in the courts, whereas Australian citizens are able to use the courts to challenge the Australian Government? In the light of the Royal Commission report, will the Prime Minister now lift this ban on action being taken by British service men, many of whom have suffered grievously as a result of the tests?

The Prime Minister: As the right hon. Gentleman is aware, a survey on British service men who took part in the tests in Australia was set up in 1983. I am not in a position to give the right hon. Gentleman any more information, because that survey is continuing.

Mr. Spearing: Is the Prime Minister aware that last week a Minister of the Crown, before a Select Committee, said that the forthcoming possible withdrawal from UNESCO was a decision that would be taken by Her Majesty's Government without any pressure whatever from the United States? In view of the fact that change has already taken place, and that Britain, as the leading member of the Commonwealth, could, with her Commonwealth partners, achieve even greater change in the future, and that any withdrawal from UNESCO would be to the detriment of Britain's influence in the world, will the Prime Minister say why she disagrees with those points?

The Prime Minister: As the hon. Gentleman is aware, a statement on the Government's decision on UNESCO is to be made later this afternoon. It was a decision taken in British interests.

Mr. Stokes: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in recent months many hon. Members on both sides of the House have become anxious and distressed about the constant bickering between Her Majesty's Government and the Church of England? If it is too much to hope that my right hon. Friend can abate the intense keenness of some of my colleagues to make instant comments on Church publications, could she, when she meets the Archbishop of Canterbury, ask him whether some of the statements could be made by more broadly-based politicians, not only by those on the Left, and whether their remedies could be more spiritual and less economic?

The Prime Minister: I thank my hon. Friend for the reasonableness of his question. Everyone should read the report and make up his mind on the recommendations.

Mr. Adley: asked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 5 December.

The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Adley: I welcome the letter that my right hon. Friend sent yesterday to the leader of the Liberal party, in


which she referred to misdemeanours by a few people in the City. Is she aware that many Conservative Members are concerned about those activities? Will she assure the House that she and her Ministers, where practicable and proper, will bring whatever pressure they think it is right to bear on the City to enforce self-regulation? If that will not work, there are those of us who will be looking very carefully at the Financial Services Bill when it is published.

The Prime Minister: As my hon. Friend is aware, matters of fraud are for the police, and prosecution is for the police and the Director of Public Prosecutions, not the Government. The Government are anxious that there should not be any shortage of resources, and we are reviewing that matter immediately.
As my hon. Friend is aware, the Financial Services Bill will be published shortly. In White Paper form it was broadly welcomed by the House as a whole. My hon. Friend will also be aware that the Government set up the fraud investigation group earlier this year to help to get effective investigation and prosecution of major fraud cases. The Government have asked Lord Justice Roskill to look at the law and procedure in major fraud cases, and his inquiry is expected to report early in the new year.
The Government are as anxious as anyone in the land to see that cases of fraud are brought to court and convictions secured where the evidence so permits.

Mr. Hoyle: asked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 5 December.

The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Hoyle: During the break from her engagements, will the Prime Minister examine the take-over bid that is being made by Elders for Allied Lyons? Is she aware that 68,000 jobs at Allied Lyons are at risk? Does she agree that there is something wrong with the capitalist system when it permits foreign bankers to have rich financial pickings at the expense of workers' jobs? Will she ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to recommend to the Office of Fair Trading that the matter should be referred to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission?

The Prime Minister: It is clear from the latter part of the hon. Gentleman's question that this matter must be considered first by the Director General of Fair Trading. When he has received his advice, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry will decide whether to refer the matter. I hope and believe that that decision will be made soon.

Mr. Forth: asked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 5 December.

The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Forth: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the police continue to attract the support and confidence of the British people? Does she further agree with the contempt that many Conservative Members hold for mad Bernie Grant and the Haringey militants, who are trying to throw the police out of the Broadwater Farm estate? Does she also agree that the residents of Broadwater Farm estate would rather have police protection than military anarchy?

The Prime Minister: Yes, wholeheartedly. The latest antics of Mr. Grant show how very much the Left is still

against the police. I think that is a tragedy. I understand that the Commissioner's view is that the police are entitled to be present in the numbers they think necessary. He believes it right that the police—[HON. MEMBERS: "Reading."] Opposition Members will try to prevent from speaking anyone who stands up in support of the police. The Commissioner believes it right that the police should be free to decide what is needed to provide the local people—[HON. MEMBERS: "Reading."]—with the protection to which they have a right. I notice that some hon. Members do not like free speech.

Points of Order

Mr. Dennis Skinner: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Peter Thurnham: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: I will take points of order after the three statements, unless they arise directly from and are not an extension of Question Time.

Mr. Thurnham: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I should be grateful if you would allow my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to answer my question—[HON. MEMBERS: "No".] This is a matter for which the Government have direct responsibility, and n stems directly from an answer given on Monday afternoon by the Under-Secretary of State for Transport—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I have no doubt that the hon. Gentleman had thought out his question carefully, because it was printed on the Order Paper. But the House knows that questions must be related to the Prime Minister's responsibility. She has no responsibility for any action that militants might take—

Mr. Churchill: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Prime Minister has no responsibility for any action that militants might take at Manchester airport.

Mr. Churchill: rose—

Mr. Skinner: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I will take Mr. Churchill first.

Mr. Churchill: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. The Government clearly have responsibility for legislation in the House that could prevent the Marxist Left on Manchester city council from taking over Manchester airport under the guise of a sham—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Indeed, that may be so. Had the hon. Gentleman asked that question, it would have been in order.

Mr. Skinner: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. The most important feature of that question was not only that was it planted but that the Prime Minister had a readymade answer to a question for which you said she has no responsibility. The Prime Minister and the hon. Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnham) were cheating the House.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Let me tell the hon. Gentleman and the House that it is wrong to say that questions are planted when they are on the Order Paper.

Mr. Eric Deakins: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I ask on whose authority business questions have been relegated to being taken after a statement when our normal procedure is that they come before statements?

Mr. Speaker: If the Government ask to make a business statement, that is in order and it takes its proper place.

Mr. John Golding: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. How can it be ruled that the Prime Minister is not responsible for the question when the question was written before the answer? [Laughter.]

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Thurnham: Further to my point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mrs. Ann Clwyd: rose—

Mr. Golding: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnham) must put the question in the proper form. If he reads Hansard tomorrow, he will see that he did not.

Mr. Thurnham: Further to my point of order, Mr. Speaker. There is a meeting tomorrow of the shadow joint board for Manchester airport, and we should be most grateful to hear an answer to the question that I put.

Mr. Speaker: Not today.

Mrs. Clwyd: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You will understand why I raise this point of order at this stage. It arises out of Question Time. I do so because I was named on the Order Paper for absenting myself from a Private Bill Committee.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady has given me notice of this point of order, and it does not arise out of this Question Time.

Mrs. Clwyd: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Golding: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Order. We have a busy programme today. There are three statements and some important business. I will take points of order if they are legitimate and arise out of this Question Time. I will take other points of order in their proper place at the end, where I always take them.

Mr. Golding: The response of the House to the mistake that I made in my point of order was more eloquent than if I had put it correctly.

Mr. Speaker: I am not taking any more points of order at this stage.

Mrs. Clwyd: rose—

Mr. Speaker: I am not taking any more points of order. I ask the hon. Lady to resume her seat, please. The Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister: rose—

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mrs. Clwyd: Further to my point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am not taking any more points of order.

Mrs. Clwyd: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am on my feet. I will take the hon. Lady's point of order, as I have said, at the end of the statement; and I will take the point of order of the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) at the end of the statements.

Mrs. Clwyd: rose—

Mr. Bennett: rose—

The Prime Minister: With permission, Mr. Speaker, I will make a statement about the European Council held in Luxembourg on 2 and 3 December. My right hon. and learned Friend—

Mrs. Clwyd: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Do I understand that the hon. Lady's Committee will meet at 4 o'clock?

Mrs. Clwyd: No; it is meeting now, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: In that event, as an exception, I shall take the hon. Lady's point of order.

Mrs. Clwyd: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am sorry to press the point, but it raises an interesting matter on which I should like your ruling.
First, I was absent from the Committee for which I was named on the Order Paper because I was down on the Order Paper to ask a question in the Chamber. I should like your ruling on whether Committee business takes precedence over the business of the Chamber. I would like that information for my constituents and for other hon. Members. It is important that we should know whether it is less important to examine the Executive than to be in Committee. I should like your ruling because, according to the rules of Committee, we are subject to penalties if we absent ourselves from a Committee. I think that you should give a ruling on the matter.

Mr. Speaker: Order. This is of interest to the whole House. The hon. Lady gave me notice of her point of order, so I am able to give her the ruling for which she asks. She will know that the House has always regarded attendance at Private Bill Committees as of the utmost importance. Under Standing Order No. 122 of the Private Business Standing Orders absences from these Committees must be reported to the House. The form of words of the report matches the wording of the Standing Order, which is:
A member of any such committee shall not absent himself from his duties thereon, except in the case of illness or by leave of the House; and if any member is not present within one hour after the time appointed for the meeting of the committee, or if any member absents himself from his duties thereon, the member shall be reported to the House at its next sitting.
That is the Standing Order.

European Council (Luxembourg)

The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I shall make a statement about the European Council held in Luxembourg on 2 and 3 December. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs accompanied me to this meeting. I have arranged for the conclusions of the Council to be put in the Library of the House.
The European Council reached agreement in five main areas. The first was the completion of the Community's internal market. This has been an important United Kingdom objective for a long time, with the strong support of British industry and business. The target of completing the Common Market by 1992 will be established in the treaty, and we agreed that there should be greater use of majority voting on a number of treaty articles dealing with goods and services. But unanimity will be retained for all decisions on taxation. The free movement of persons and the rights and interests of employees.
We also retain the right to take national action where required to protect public, animal and plant health.
The United Kingdom's position and the position of this Parliament are thus properly protected on such vital questions as frontier controls in relation to terrorism, crime, drugs and immigration from outside the Community; and on essential controls in health—for example, on rabies. The Luxembourg compromise, whereby a member state can invoke a very important national interest to prevent a decision being taken, is unaffected.
Secondly, the European Council agreed that the treaty should be brought up to date by new articles on technology, environment and the regional fund. Action has hitherto been taken in these areas on the basis of the general article in the treaty. The new articles will provide a more precise basis for action in these areas in future. Unanimity will be preserved for all-important decisions.
Thirdly, we agreed on procedural changes to improve consultation with the European Assembly. There will be better arrangements to enable the Council to take account of amendments to Community legislation suggested by the Assembly. But in all cases the last word on such legislation will rest with the Council. There will be no transfer of power on these matters from this House to the Assembly.
Fourthly, on monetary co-operation between member states, an amendment to the treaty was agreed which describes what has already been achieved in the Community framework, without entering into new commitments.
Finally, agreement was reached on a separate treaty of co-operation in foreign policy on the basis of the draft presented last summer by the United Kingdom. This formalises existing arrangements for consultation among the Ten on foreign policy matters and looks to a steadily closer co-operation.
The European Council's decisions on all these matters remain subject to general reservations from Italy and Denmark. The proposed amendments to the treaty will go forward only if these reserves are lifted. The United Kingdom has reserved its position on the voting arrangements in a proposed new treaty article on working

conditions. We insist that unanimity be preserved, in view of the risks that this article might be used to impose unfair burdens on our small and medium-sized business.
The European Council also discussed the economic and social situation and confirmed existing economic policies designed to reduce inflation and encourage sustained growth. On deregulation, the Commission gave an undertaking that in future all new proposals would be accompanied by an assessment of the effects on business and job creation; that the most important existing regulations would be re-examined to simplify them and to reduce the burden on industry; and that there should be a regular procedure for monitoring progress towards this objective. The United Kingdom's initiative earlier this year has thus been formally adopted.
In my statement in this House following the last European Council in June, I made it clear that we would have been ready then to take the steps necessary to complete the internal market, to improve decision taking, to formalise foreign policy co-operation and to improve procedures for consultation with the European Assembly.
Those objectives are now embodied in the conclusions of the Luxembourg European Council together with some tidying up of the treaty to reflect the Community's development. The amendments to the treaty have to be approved by each sovereign Parliament and accordingly will be submitted to this House.
I believe that the conclusions on completing the Common Market and reducing the burden of regulations will be of long-term benefit to British firms selling their goods and services in the European Community. Together with the arrangements to reduce the scale of Britain's budgetary contribution agreed last year, they will be an important step towards enabling this country to realise more fully the benefits of our membership of the European Community.

Mr. Neil Kinnock: Is the Prime Minister aware of the widespread feeling that yet again a summit has evaded the obligations and opportunities to tackle effectively unemployment in Europe and to promote Europe's role in international affairs? Does she recall saying to the House on her return from the Milan summit in July:
I saw nothing before us that would require an amendment to the treaty"—[Official Report, 2 July 1985; Vol. 82, c 189.]
Why has she now performed a U-turn and agreed to procedures for amending the treaty as well as conceding the national right of veto in important sectors?
At Luxembourg, did the Prime Minister bother to pursue reform of the common agricultural policy, which produces food stockpiles that not only obviously outrage the British people but continue to distort seriously Community funding? Did she raise the question of the huge gap between social fund remittance and payments which, according to Commissioner Varfis, will ensure that the worst losses will be inflicted on the British people in 1986? Why does the Prime Minister continue to promote the idea of European foreign policy co-operation but ignore the views of our partners in the Community over issues such as the Falklands and South Africa, and today spitefully rejected their unanimous plea for us to remain in UNESCO?

The Prime Minister: We had a debate on economic matters and considered a substantial report by the Commission. It will be considered in more detail by the


finance Council. All member Governments present endorsed the approach of the Commission which was to pursue policies to keep inflation down and prudent financial policies, and thereafter to pursue deregulation and to take steps to bring the internal market into being.
As to the amendments, as the right hon. Gentleman is aware, most of what has been done now could have been achieved without treaty amendment. Many of the others wished to go by treaty amendment. I was not one of those, but as they wished to do so they were entitled to. The detailed drafting of the amendments shows that all our interests are protected. Many amendments, such as that on monetary matters, merely describe the state that we have reached in the Community. It was interesting that those who wanted treaty amendments most were those who have put a reserve on the results.
As to the CAP, the treaty is not the obstacle to reform. There is nothing wrong with the treaty provision for the common agricultural policy. The matter comes up each time, but, as we were dealing with treaty matters, reform did not arise.
As to foreign policy co-operation, I expect that there will continue to be differences, but we shall try to work together as much as possible. As the right hon. Gentleman mentioned the Falklands, I remind him of the support that we got from the Community when the Falklands compaign was beginning, support for which we were profoundly grateful.

Mr. David Howell: Is not the best way to bring monetary affairs within the scope of the Community and the treaty to achieve free trade in financial services and free capital movement throughout the Community? Can my right hon. Friend reassure us that the summit agreement has made, and will make, progress on that front?

The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend is aware that we pointed out to some of those countries that wished to go much further than we did that in practice we have released exchange controls and have freedom of capital movements, while some of those whose rhetoric was to the fore in the Milan Council have not done either of those things as yet, and some will not do it now. As my right hon. Friend made very clear, we were right. The treaty amendment is very modest. However, I doubt whether every country will free exchange controls, although Germany is anxious that capital movement should be freed.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: Does the Prime Minister regard the result of the European Council as a significant advance towards majority voting and more effective decision making? Is it again, in her view, just a question of "that much", or is this a significant advance?

The Prime Minister: If the articles that are enumerated in the treaty are passed, it will be a significant advance for the internal market. As the debate and discussion continued, it became obvious that those countries whose rhetoric had been the highest were among those who put a reserve on, for example, majority voting for transport matters in the Community. They are of great importance to us. As the right hon. Gentleman is very much aware, there was a big gap between the rhetoric and what they

were prepared to agree in practice. We had a small reservation about one matter. Other countries had reservations about the whole matter.

Mr. Teddy Taylor: Was it not a little daft to make significant concessions in order to achieve a piece of paper on the so-called completion of the market, when France has today imposed a complete ban upon all lamb imports and apparently we cannot do a single thing about it?
Was it wise for the Government to concede the veto on article 28 relating to changes to the common external tariff? Will not this mean that the majority of the member states can go ahead with a protectionist regime and that there is nothing that Britain can do about it?

The Prime Minister: On my hon. Friend's last point, he is aware that trade matters are for the European Community. We agree that sometimes by unanimity and sometimes by majority. Some of them are already agreed by majority.
As for my hon. Friend's question about lamb, that was not a matter for treaty amendment, so we were not considering it.

Mr. Tony Benn: Will the Prime Minister clarify her view about the long-term objective of political union within a fully federal united states of Europe, about which a great deal is regularly said in the Commission and elsewhere? Is she aware that an overwhelming majority of the British people would not only reject it but would believe that the policies designed to deal with unemployment in Britian could not be carried through under the treaty as it now stands?

The Prime Minister: I do not believe in the concept of a united states of Europe, nor do I believe that it would ever be attainable. The whole history is completely different, so I agree with the right hon. Gentleman about that matter. I am constantly saying that I wish that they would talk less about European and political union. The terms are not understood in this country. In so far as they are understood over there, they mean a good deal less than some people over here think they mean.

Mr. Robert Jackson: My right hon. Friend is to be congratulated upon a personal diplomatic success in ensuring that there is a high degree of practical content in these institutional agreements. One of the most striking features of the discussions seems to have been the silence of other delegations on the much discussed question of the revision of the Luxembourg compromise. How does my right hon. Friend envisage the future operation of majority voting procedures in the Community?

The Prime Minister: As my hon. Friend is very much aware, the Luxembourg compromise will still be applied even when there is majority voting, provided that a very important national interest is involved. He will also be aware that at Milan we said that we should write down that interest so that it could be clearly defined and seen by other delegations. However, my hon. Friend is right. Other delegations did not pursue that matter, so presumably the Luxembourg compromise will operate as it does now by the declaration of a particular point that is of very important national interest.

Mr. Eric Deakins: What advantages does the Prime Minister now see in amendments to the basic treaties to extend the legislative powers of the


European Assembly and the competence of the Commission which she did not appreciate when she made her statement against treaty amendments after the Milan summit?

The Prime Minister: Most of the changes that have been made under the text on the European Assembly, which are modest, could in our view, have been done by discussion without amending the treaty because the last word will continue to remain with the Council. Only two changes in the text would not have been undertaken otherwise. First, where there is an application for new accessions from a different country to the Community, the Assembly could, by withholding its consent, stop that application. Secondly, where there is an application for a new association agreement between third countries and the Community, the Assembly could, by failing to give its consent, stop it. Those are the only differences, except that we shall consult more with the Assembly before decisions are taken.

Sir Anthony Meyer: Could my right hon. Friend say whether this modest step in the direction of majority voting, which is surely inevitable if the 12 nation Community is not to be paralysed, is itself threatened by the possibility of one of the signatories to the summit agreement applying a veto to its implementation?

The Prime Minister: Yes. If Italy and Denmark maintain their general reserve, the matter could not be passed by each sovereign Parliament. Italy has undertaken to see what the European Assembly's views are before she makes up her mind. Denmark has certain constitutional problems, which she might be able to resolve, in which case, if Italy could go ahead, we could go ahead and bring the matters before the House.

Mr. Bryan Gould: Is it not the case that the Prime Minister has made a statement to the House on a meeting which she did not want to take place, on an agenda which she did not want to discuss, and on agreements which she did not want to make? How did that come about?

The Prime Minister: The meeting would have taken place anyway because—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman misses the point. If it had not been called the "intergovernmental conference", the same people as sit on the European Council would have met at the same place at the same time.

Mr. Anthony Nelson: Although I welcome the agreement as far as it goes, may I ask my right hon. Friend if she is of the view that protection and promotion of national interests should be synonymous with joining more wholeheartedly with our European member neighbours on monetary and economic policy, particularly on full membership of the European monetary system? Will my right hon. Friend consider whether it is time for us to be in the vanguard rather than the rearguard of such movements?

The Prime Minister: I have said, and it remains our policy, that we shall join the exchange rate mechanism of the European monetary system when we believe that the time is appropriate. We do not believe that it is so at present.
As for being in the lead on monetary matters, as I said earlier, there are many matters on which we are well in the lead, both in the absence of a foreign exchange control and

in capital movement. It would be a great benefit to further monetary co-operation if some of the states who are members of the EMS would follow our lead.

Mr. Alex Carlile: While in Luxembourg, was the Prime Minister informed by the French Government that they would ignore the communality of the so-called complete Common Market by putting a ban two days later on the import of British sheepmeat? Will she tell the sheep farmers of Wales what the Government will do about the ban?

The Prime Minister: Obviously, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food will take up the matter, because we negotiated the agreement on lamb, and it is beneficial to the hon. and learned Gentleman's farmers in Wales and to farmers throughout the country. The hon. and learned Gentleman's comments reflect my earlier point that other countries have an enormous gap between their rhetoric about what they want to do and what they do in practice. The whole time, part of our task has been to diminish their expectations, and to bring them down from the clouds to practical matters.

Mr. Robin Maxwell-Hyslop: Since there is no pretence that United Kingdom lamb is banned from being exported to France on health grounds, will my right hon. Friend inform the Commission and the Council of Ministers that she will not place before the House any motion to ratify the Luxembourg agreements until the French comply with the basic elements of the original treaty of Rome in allowing free movement of agricultural produce of that sort?

The Prime Minister: If that action trespasses against the Community's law, it will be a matter for the Commission to take to the European Court.
With regard to the point about not putting matters before the House should Denmark and Italy not lift their reserve, I must point out to my hon. Friend that some of the matters, especially those relating to the internal market, would be helpful to our insurance business and financial services setting up in Europe, because one vote against has stopped many people from establishing themselves in Europe as they can in this country. It would be wrong to hold that up because it would not help the problems to which my hon. Friend correctly refers.

Mr. Allan Rogers: Will the Prime Minister say in what circumstances in future negotiations she will invoke the Luxembourg compromise?

The Prime Minister: No, Mr. Speaker. One has to wait for the negotiations. As the hon. Member will be aware, we sometimes have to consider the Luxembourg compromise, in particular, with regard to agriculture.

Mr. Michael McNair Wilson: In her statement, my right hon. Friend referred to the Community attitude to terrorism. Did the Irish Prime Minister use the Council meeting as an opportunity for him to sign the European convention on the suppression of terrorism, as promised at the time of the Anglo-Irish agreement?

The Prime Minister: The European convention on the suppression of terrorism is not the Community's convention. The Taoiseach and I met and reviewed the position following the signing of the Anglo-Irish agreement and confirmed that the agreement would be implemented as planned. I hope that the signing of that convention will take place.

Mr. Nigel Spearing: Will the Prime Minister reconsider her reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Deakins) about the European Assembly's powers? Is she aware that in the communiqué issued yesterday article 149 of the present treaty, which contains five lines, was replaced by a new article of about 35 lines? It refers to the Assembly's increased powers of consultation and recommendation. Does not the inclusion of such a proposal in the treaty constitute a change in that Assembly's powers and require an amendment to the European Assembly Elections Act 1978 passed by this House?

The Prime Minister: Increased consultation with the European Assembly was taking place in any event. It was proposed by us at the Milan Council but without treaty amendment. It has now been put into a treaty amendment, but in that amendment the last word stays with the Council, as was made clear by the President's communiqué.

Mr. Michael Grylls: Was my right hon. Friend able to make progress with our European partners on the pledge contained in the document "Lifting the Burden" on raising the VAT threshold to £50,000? Does she agree that that would remove a serious burden from small firms?

The Prime Minister: As my hon. Friend will be aware, our VAT threshold for small firms is considerably higher than those in the Community. We are strongly advocating the retention of our limit. I agree that we should like it higher, although that view is not shared by everyone in this country. At the moment, we insist upon retaining our level, although in its calculations the Community says that it is too high.

Mr. Dennis Skinner: How much did the summit cost? How much will it add to the £4,726 million net that the British taxpayer has had to find in the first 10 years of Britain's membership of the Common Market? Those are the questions that people ask in Bolsover, not all the gobbledegook that we have heard from the Prime Minister. Is it not a rather strange state of affairs that we have a Prime Minister who constantly tells the British nation that there will be no meetings at No. 10 with beer and sandwiches, but at the moment when they decide to have a Common Market summit, with all its banqueting, junketing and claret—even though it is a meeting that the Prime Minister does not think is important—she gets on the first aeroplane?

The Prime Minister: I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman will convey to his most distinguished constituents of Bolsover the fact that the Government are in favour of having only two European Councils a year instead of three, and that I hope that we shall implement that next year.

Mr. Jonathan Aitken: I sympathise with my right hon. Friend's efforts to play down this nonevent at Luxembourg on the ground, as she put it, that it would have happened anyway. May I remind her that before going to the summit she and my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary reiterated time and again that in their view there was no need for any changes in the treaty of Rome? How does she justify the change of policy which, presumably, need not have happened?

The Prime Minister: We could have made most of the changes without amendments to the treaty. We could have done it by agreement among the same people, who would be called a European Council instead of an intergovernment conference. If one belongs to a Community, one has to take into account other people's views, particularly if one wants some of the changes that are being made to enable some of our people to establish themselves in the Community, which they cannot now do. We wanted something from our European partners and they wanted something from us. It seemed a reasonable compromise.

Mr. Stuart Bell: With reference to the question put earlier by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition about how the treaty modifications affect unemployment, will the Prime Minister tell the House whether the modifications in relation to the environment, the regional fund and technology will affect stricken regions such as Cleveland? Is the Prime Minister aware that Cleveland has the highest unemployment rate in the country? Are the treaty modifications designed to increase and improve the flow of funds to areas such as Cleveland?

The Prime Minister: The treaty modifications are called cohesions. As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, there were two funds operating under the treaty which were contained in the treaty. The third fund, the regional fund, had not been a matter for the treaty. We put the regional fund into the treaty and we put into it that the areas which have been subject to industrial decline and change should also rank for payments from that fund and for consideration in any review of the three funds. We have retained the status quo on that matter. Again, it could have been done without the treaty. The amendments on the environment and technology show more precisely the activities which were previously taking place under article 235.
I believe that the changes in the internal market can help a number of people. The general policy to try to have more job creation is set out in the economic report which is being considered by the European Council, and whose general thrust was approved by us.

Mr. Hugh Dykes: My right hon. Friend deserves congratulations on achieving a significant, but in some respects still modest, agreement which takes the Community further forward. Does she agree that after 12 years of membership, following 12 years of negotiating entry, it is high time that the United Kingdom pitched in with much more integration and co-operation with the other member states to create general extra prosperity for all member states? Accepting the House's endorsement of the measure when it is presented to the House in due course—which I am sure will happen—does my right hon. Friend also accept that this is a first step which should be used to continue in the future the process of co-operation and integration, involving the European Parliament at the margin more and more? As a gesture of Christmas monetary confidence, would it not be a good idea to join the European monetary system without delay?

The Prime Minister: No, Mr. Speaker. One does not do such things at Christmas or any other time unless it is in Britain's interest to do so. I believe that it is right to have more consultation and co-operation with the European Assembly, but it is difficult enough to reach decisions with 10, let alone 12, members of the European Economic


Community. If the decision has also to take place in conjunction with the European Assembly, we should never have any. I am sorry, but that is what I believe. Therefore, we have not given more powers to the European Assembly. In general, we have kept the final word with the Council. The European Assembly has extra rights to consultation and to make amendments.

Mr. James Wallace: The Prime Minister has reported on the limited progress made at the Council, which will involve some alterations to the treaty. Was any progress made on the articles in the treaty which are awaiting fulfilment, specifically article 138 on the uniform electoral system to be used for elections to the Assembly? If not, why not?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir, because I believe that they are neither desirable nor would they be agreed.

Mr. Stephen Dorrell: Does the Prime Minister agree that the best way of reinvigorating our economy and that of Europe and thereby creating more jobs is to create companies in Europe capable of holding their own in international competition? Does she agree that the steps that the Government have taken to complete the European market are the best way to provide the kind of home market that is available to competitors based in the United States and Japan?

The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. At our insistence, an extra clause was added to the article on technology stating that technological cooperation will work to the advantage of job creation only if the producers can see the whole of Europe as a single market similar in size to that of the United States. We believe that that would make more jobs available to the British people.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I will allow questions to continue for a further five minutes, but I remind the House that there are other statements to be made.

Mr. Tony Marlow: My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made some robust and reassuring remarks about the European union. Will she clarify any speculation by stating categorically that during the time of her premiership she will not ask the House to agree to a European act of union?

The Prime Minister: I do not understand what is meant by a European act of union, but I assure my hon. Friend that I would never commend to the House a federation equivalent to a United States of Europe.

Mr. Michael Latham: Is my right hon. Friend aware that lurking near the top of her statement today and of other statements that she has made is the obvious pressure placed upon her by other Common Market nations for more integration, more interference and more power for the European Assembly? Will she state clearly that her opinion is against any such action?

The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. We often hear such talk at Councils. On each occasion, the Government's task is to bring the rhetoric back to reality, which is that other countries—with one or two exceptions—tend to take the same view as we do. Indeed they sometimes do not observe the conditions

of the treaty as well as we do and they frequently put reserves on particular matters that are in their interest to a greater extent than we do.
The Government are wary of greater integration except on matters such as the internal market which are to our advantage. We are also very anxious to protect British interests where they differ from the rest of the Market—for example, in animal health and farm matters where, because we are an island, we have and shall retain different systems of protection.
With regard to the question of further interference, I firmly hold that any treaty changes must be a matter for each and every sovereign parliament.

Mr. Frank Cook: The Prime Minister has laid great emphasis on the need for a spirit of compromise, particularly with regard to greater integration. Does that mean that the House will hear in future of a possible Anglo-Spanish agreement in line with the Anglo-Irish agreement? If there is such a prospect, what provision will be made for a process to self-determination for the Gibraltarians?

The Prime Minister: As the hon. Gentleman is aware, the position of the Gibraltarians is protected in their constitution and will continue to be protected.

Mr. Eric Forth: Does my right hon. Friend expect the European Parliament to consider the proposals at its meeting next week? [HON. MEMBERS: "Assembly, not Parliament."] The Prime Minister will know that I do not share the obsession of my colleagues with the distinction between Assembly and Parliament. Will there not be a paradox if we do not accept the verdict of the European Parliament to which we seek to give more consultative powers?

The Prime Minister: I do not think that there will be a paradox. The European Assembly is different from our national sovereign Parliament. Any changes to the treaty are a matter for each and every sovereign Parliament to which we as a Government are responsible. I think that it is reasonable to consult the European Assembly. My hon. Friend may have been to the Assembly more often than I, but it is the differences between the European Assembly and a national sovereign Parliament which impress me more than the similarities.

Mr. Tim Smith: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the agreement which has been reached on assessing the effects of Euro regulations and directives on businesses will be very welcome, especially to small firms? How will the proposal be implemented if, for example, a particular directive is seen to be unduly burdensome for small firms?

The Prime Minister: The President of the Commission is setting up a unit within the Commission which will examine every new directive or regulation and assess the costs that would be added to businesses before the directives are implemented. The unit will also look at existing regulations in that light and report to the relevant groups considering them. That is a good move, though. I confess that I expressed a certain amount of scepticism about it because when the unit was proposed regulations were being made which were needlessly detailed and would add considerable cost to small businesses and others. The Government have rightly resisted such


proposals and will continue to resist them. By setting up the unit, the Commission is making an effort. I hope that it will produce the results that we want.

Mr. Keith Best: Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is so much opposition from Labour Members, particularly from the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) and the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), to closer monetary and economic co-operation within Europe because such co-operation would be a permanent safeguard against the implementation of full-bloodied Socialist policies in this country?

The Prime Minister: I do not believe that there can be any safeguard against that happening except to make sure that it never does.

Mr. Nicholas Budgen: Is it not clear that in foreign policy matters and on all important issues each member state acts according to its own national interests? Is not the pretence and rhetoric of a common policy on foreign affairs dangerous in that it leads to muddle and misunderstanding?

The Prime Minister: The leading article states:
That being members of the European Community, we shall endeavour jointly to formulate and implement a European foreign policy".
Of course, each member state has its own particular national interests by virtue of history and of economic and geographical differences. If differences exist, we maintain them and act in our own interests, but it is equally in the interests of all member states to act together if we can on certain matters because we are very much stronger by so doing. One of the reasons for coming together in Europe was to be the most powerful market in the world and to have more power in negotiating trading matters with other nations. Sometimes it is in our interests to act separately, and sometimes it is very much in our interests to act together.

Sir William Clark: Following my right hon. Friend's answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey, North-West (Mr. Grylls), is she aware that many hon. Members think that the threshold for VAT, at £19,500, acts as a deterrent, especially to small businesses? While it is true that some thresholds within the Common Market are lower than ours, does my right hon. Friend agree that the rates in those cases are much lower than 15 per cent.?

The Prime Minister: There are a number of differences between us and the Community on tax matters. That is why we have been so anxious to limit the Community's capacity to make more taxation regulations. I want to maintain our VAT threshold, but the Community is already at us because it thinks that our threshold is too high. It was because of those differences that we insisted at the intergovernmental conference that changes in taxation should come about only by unanimous rule. We do not want to get into more difficulties of the kind involved in the threshold directive.

Business of the House

Mr. Neil Kinnock: May I ask the Leader of the House if he will state the business for next week?

The Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Biffen): The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY 9 DECEMBER—There will be a debate on the Channel fixed link on a motion for the Adjournment of the House.
Afterwards there will be a debate on a motion to take note of European Community documents relating to hormone growth promoters. Details of the relevant documents will be given in the Official Report.
TUESDAY 10 DECEMBER—Second Reading of the Gas Bill.
Remaining stages of the European Communities (Spanish and Portuguese Accession) Bill [Lords].
WEDNESDAY 11 DECEMBER—Opposition day—(2nd Allotted Day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion entitled "The Housing Crisis and Urban Deprivation".
Motion relating to the Crown Prosecution Service (Transfer of Staff) Regulations.
There will be a debate on a motion to take note of European Community documents relating to the European regional development fund. Details of the documents concerned will be given in the Official Report.
THURSDAY 12 DECEMBER—There will be a debate on a motion to approve the Chancellor of the Exchequer's autumn statement.
Motion on the Social Security (Contributions, Re-rating) Order.
FRIDAY 13 DECEMBER—Private Members' motions.
MONDAY 16 DECEMBER—Until seven o'clock, private Members' motions.
Remaining stages of the Education (Amendment) Bill.
Motion on the Education Support Grants (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations.
It is expected that the Chairman of Ways and Means will name opposed private business for consideration at seven o'clock.
The House will wish to know, Mr. Speaker, that it will be proposed that, subject to the progress of business, the House should rise for the Christmas Adjournment on Friday 20 December until Monday 13 January.

[Debate on Monday 9 December



Relevant Documents



(a) 7948/84
Draft Directive to amend Directive 81/602 on use of hormones in animals


(b) Unnumbered
Amendment to Document No. 7948/84


Relevant Reports of European Legislation Committee



(a) HC 78-xxxv (1983–84) paragraph 1



(b) HC 21-ii (1985–86 paragraph 1



Debate on Wednesday 11 December



Relevant Documents



(c) 9563/84
Report on European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)


(d) 9506/85
Tenth Report on ERDF 1984

Mr. Kinnock: Does the right hon. Gentleman recall that at Prime Minister's Question Time the Prime Minister said that the memorandum of understanding on British participation in the strategic defence initiative research was still being negotiated? Will he give an undertaking that before such an agreement is signed we shall have at the very least a statement from the Secretary of State for Defence, but preferably a debate, so that the views of the House can be properly put on such a vital matter?
Secondly, why is Monday's debate on the Channel fixed link to take place on a motion for the Adjournment, and not on an amendable motion, as the latter procedure would have allowed a much clearer declaration of views and presentation of arguments?
As proposed amendments to the EEC treaties will require legislation, will the right hon. Gentleman undertake to provide proper time—I refer not just to the length of time, but to the need to debate these matters at appropriate times of the day—for consideration of any changes?
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is mounting concern in all parts of the House and outside about matters relating to the City of London and its role in the British economy? Will the right hon. Gentleman provide time for a full debate on those matters before Christmas and in Government time?
Why have the remaining stages of the Education (Amendment) Bill and the motion on the Education Support Grants (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations been put down together for debate on Monday week? Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that this is an entirely inappropriate way to go about that business because, although the issues are related, they are separate matters and should come before the House separately? Will he reconsider the timing of that brace of debates?
Does the right hon. Gentleman recall that on 14 November I asked for a debate on the wild allegations by the Minister of State, Home Office about hon. Members who were legally helping visitors to secure entry to this country at ports of entry? When related matters were raised yesterday, the Leader of the House suggested that they should be raised on next week's business and that he would treat the matter seriously. When are we to have a debate during which the House can discuss the original allegations and related matters of interest?
Finally, why are details of the licence which will give the privatised British Gas Corporation a 25-year monopoly and establish the price formula and provisions for standing and other charges to be published only one day before the Second Reading debate on Tuesday? That document must surely exist already. Why are the Government afraid to release it this week so that it can receive proper consideration?

Mr. Biffen: I shall take the various points in reverse order.
With regard to the debate on the Gas Bill, I appreciate that the schedule is very tight and that it is inconvenient

that the licensing document could not be made available earlier. There is, however, nothing sinister or wayward about the timing of the release of that document so that it can feature in the Second Reading debate.
As for the recent allegations about observance of the immigration rules, I said in the context of the remarks of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms. Short) that I would look into the matter, as it was alleged, among other things, that my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State, Home Office had made documents available to a newspaper. I understand that he has since written to the hon. Lady making it clear that that was not so. I am sure that she will be pleased to have that information. I have been in contact with my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary about the desirability of making a statement on the wider issue, and he hopes to be able to do so before the Christmas recess.
On the education matters, there is clearly a difference of view between the right hon. Member and myself. I should have thought that the similarity of the documents probably outweighed the disparate aspects, but if the right hon. Gentleman feels deeply about it perhaps we may look at it again through the usual channels.
As we are moving towards publication of the Bill relating to financial services, the debate on that measure will be an important occasion for the consideration of many of the wider issues concerning the City, as the right hon. Gentleman has requested. I cannot give a guarantee from the Dispatch Box today about the precise timing of that debate, but again that matter can be pursued through the usual channels.
I take the right hon. Gentleman's point about the desirability of allowing proper time for reflection on any proposed changes to European Community treaties.
As for the debate on the Channel fixed link, I believe that to proceed by way of a motion for the Adjournment is legitimate when the Government are still taking, part in the consultative process. When the Government have decided what feasible proposals exist, we can consider the matter further.
As for the desirability of a statement or debate before any signature is put to British participation in the strategic defence initiative, we shall, of course, be happy to discuss that through the usual channels.

Sir Bernard Braine: In view of the appalling ill-treatment of political prisoners in Poland which led my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary to send for the Polish ambassador a few days ago to make a vigorous protest about a situation which, incredibly, seems to have worsened since the summit meeting at which President Reagan properly raised the question of human rights, may I make a plea for a foreign affairs debate before Christmas in which the House can express its strong feelings about such barbarities and the damage that they do to the whole issue of détente?

Mr. Biffen: I shall raise that point with my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary, and I am sure my right hon. Friend will understand that I have every sympathy with his argument. I am not the possessor of chat much Government time between now and Christmas, and my hon. Friend might like to take the opportunities that are provided by the debates that will arise on the Adjournment.

Mr. David Alton: Will the right hon. Gentleman say when there will be a debate on our prayer opposing the Local Government Reorganisation (Transitional Provisions) Order 1985, about which I wrote to him on 2 December? When will there be a statement on the possible loss of up to 2,000 jobs in the Daily Mirror group of newspapers?

Mr. Biffen: I shall be in touch with the hon. Gentleman about the order. I shall draw the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment and my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to the importance of the second point made by the hon. Gentleman.

Sir William Clark: Will my right hon. Friend reconsider his reply on the Financial Services Bill? I ask him to give this the utmost priority. Does he agree that it is essential that we have the Bill as quickly as possible so that we can set up effective regulatory bodies, so that any suggestion of misdemeanour within the finance services can be dealt with immediately and thus avoid and obviate unfounded rumours that can do only damage to the City of London?

Mr. Biffen: My hon. Friend makes his point effectively and supports other hon. Members who have also made that point. I take full account of the importance of having a debate as early as possible, but I cannot guarantee when.

Mr. Alfred Morris: Will the right hon. Gentleman arrange for a statement next week, or at least before the Christmas recess, on whether the Government are prepared to allow a free vote on the Shops Bill? Is he aware of the increasingly strong feeling, not least on his own Benches, that it would be outrageous for such a Bill, if it ever gets through the other place, to be run through this House with a three-line Whip?

Mr. Biffen: I am tolerably modest in ambition, and I have no ambition to take over questions which can properly be answered only by the Patronage Secretary.

Mr. Ivor Stanbrook: If my right hon. Friend is considering acceding to the request of the Leader of the Opposition for the House to discuss abuse by certain hon. Members with regard to immigration, will he bear in mind the fact that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms. Short) yesterday made a complaint against my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State, Home Office and alleged that he had passed confidential correspondence to the press? Is my right hon. Friend aware that that was quite untrue and that the hon. Lady must have known that because her secretary had been told that morning by the Home Office that the Minister had had nothing to do with it? Will my right hon. Friend consider how the rights, interests and good name of Members can be protected from such accusations, even if the Member concerned is a Minister? There should be an opportunity for a Minister to reject such complaints of improper conduct.

Mr. Biffen: As I have already said, I understand that my hon. and learned Friend has written to the hon. Lady. She is not in the Chamber, and I shall not raise the level of controversy in her absence. The letter was sent in good faith, and I am sure that it will be received in good faith.

Mr. Tony Benn: Will the Leader of the House consider having a debate, not immediately, but

early in the new year, on various aspects of nuclear policy that are now causing concern? I refer to the figures given on the Yorkshire Television programme this week on incidences of cancer and leukaemia that have never been made public, to the Australian Royal Commission, to the fact that there are still discharges from nuclear installations, to the report that the country is short of plutonium for the nuclear weapons programme and also to the impending report of the Sizewell inquiry. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that that involves the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defence, the Department of the Environment and the Department of Energy? Will he make the Government's policy clear on a matter that is causing increasing public concern?

Mr. Biffen: The right hon. Gentleman persuasively reminds the House of the great importance of the nuclear topic and that it covers many areas of Government responsibility. I shall consider his remarks, but the right hon. Gentleman is a formidable parliamentarian and I am sure that he will be able to find his own ways of raising the matter in the House.

Mr. Toby Jessel: Will my right hon. Friend find time to debate the fact that the cost of the proposed joint defence school of music on the coast has now shot up to £10.6 million, and that it would be better to allow the Royal Military School of Music to remain at Kneller Hall in Twickenham, where it produces the finest and most excellent Army bands in the world?

Mr. Biffen: I am happy to endorse the voice of Twickenham. I shall draw the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence to the points that my hon. Friend has so eloquently made. I think he will find that an investigation is being carried out by the Public Accounts Committee, and it may be possible for him to give evidence to that Committee.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: Can the right hon. Gentleman yet foresee the date on which the motion for the recess is likely to be moved?

Mr. Biffen: No, but I appreciate that there will be interest in the House that that information be made available as soon as possible.

Mr. Andrew MacKay: Can my right hon. Friend say when he will ask the House to renew the ten minutes rule on speeches, as that limit proved to be a great success?

Mr. Biffen: I hope to be able to do so shortly after we return from the recess.

Mr. Stuart Randall: Will the Leader of the House find time after Christmas for a full debate on the future of the British merchant fleet? I am sure the right hon. Gentleman is aware of the decline that we have experienced in recent years both in gross registered tonnage and in the number of vessels. I hope he agrees that it would be in the interests of the country and the House to have a full debate on the market opportunities, and also on the fiscal policies, which are crucial if we are to halt the decline, or possibly encourage a growth, in the number of vessels under the British flag.

Mr. Biffen: The hon. Gentleman draws the attention of the House to an immensely important part of the national economy. I do not wish to mislead him into thinking that there is likely to be Government time


available shortly after Christmas for such a debate, but I shall draw the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport to the points that he has made.

Mr. Nicholas Fairbairn: In view of the immense publicity that has been given by the Church of England to the inner cities of what it calls Britain, will my right hon. Friend arrange for a debate on the inner cities of Scotland so that we may remind the Church of England that Britain is not England? In Scotland we live in the centre of our cities, such as Perth, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Inverness. We thrive there and, thanks to the Government, they are prosperous and restored.

Mr. Biffen: I am loth to get into more controversy concerning the established Church, but it seems that the Opposition, who are casting themselves as rather more ecumenical than the Church of England, have exactly the debate that my hon. and learned Friend wants which will enable Scotland to be included.

Mr. Roland Boyes: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Yes. [Interruption.]

Mr. Boyes: I wondered why I was not being called until last.
Does the Leader of the House recall that during recent business questions I informed him that the Supreme Court of Military Appeal was considering the fate of the Turkish Peace Executive? The court met, and adjourned until later this month. I must stress again to the right hon. Gentleman the importance that the Turkish authorities give to the voice of the United Kingdom. The right hon. Gentleman informed me that the Foreign Secretary would hear what I was saying. I have had no contact whatsoever with the Foreign Secretary. May I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to get the Foreign Secretary to make a statement on this important matter, because the fate of many people who are in prison for doing nothing more than wanting peace in the world is at stake? They have suffered for long enough in lousy conditions in a rotten gaol.

Mr. Biffen: I shall look into the matter and have it referred once again to my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary. I shall draw attention to the point that has been made. I know that, understandably, the hon. Gentleman takes the issue very much to heart, so I suggest that he tries his luck with one of the debates arising on the Consolidated Fund.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I apologise to the hon. Member for Houghton and Washington (Mr. Boyes). I had not forgotten him; it is merely that I am so used to seeing him on the Front Bench.

Mr. Tony Marlow: As the flavour of the month in a small part of the House, unpalatable to the majority, seems to be proportional representation, would it be possible for the House to debate the subject? As parliamentarian of the year and Leader of the House, will my right hon. Friend give us a lead, and does he agree that, even in the unlikely event of a hung Parliament and a referendum, he, like me, would oppose proportional representation root and branch?

Mr. Biffen: No. I have always assumed that proportional representation will be negotiable in the most fascinating political circumstances. I would never put that card face up so early in the game. For that reason, I have no wish to use Government time to have the matter debated. Now that Opposition time for debate is available below the Gangway, we shall see how much importance those hon. Members attach to it and whether they will bring the matter before the House.

Mrs. Renée Short: May I remind the Leader of the House that in the 1983–84 Session the Select Committee on Social Services carried out a major inquiry into child care, and that some of the recommendations that we made were recently reiterated in connection with the tragic case of little Jasmine? For example, we recommended that family courts should be set up. We are still waiting for the Lord Chancellor to present his proposals. We proposed that more black foster parents should be found, and that there should be three years' training for social workers. The Government's reply was received in July 1984, 18 months go. Will the Leader of the House now undertake to give a day to debate the report and the reply at the earliest opportunity—if possible before Christmas and, if not, immediately after the House returns from the Christmas recess?

Mr. Biffen: Clearly the issue is of considerable and topical importance. I shall draw the hon. Lady's point to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services, who will be answering questions next Tuesday. However, it also could be one of the topics that might interest the House in the Adjournment debates following the Consolidated Fund.

Mr. Keith Best: Will my right hon. Friend assure me that no agreement has been reached in principle by the Government with the French Government on the nature of a fixed link across the Channel? May I add my encouragement to the suggestion that we should debate the Financial Services Bill as early as possible, preferably before Christmas, to ensure continuing confidence in what is, particularly at this time, a most energetic and encouraging market?

Mr. Biffen: I thank my hon. Friend for his point about the Financial Services Bill. There is no doubt that this measure is of great importance in its own right and in trying to establish a better situation in the light of some of the recent developments in the City. On my hon. Friend's first point, I am in no sense qualified to answer a point of policy. It is an issue that should be raised on Monday.

Mr. Jonathan Aitken: With regard to Monday's debate on the Channel fixed link, is my right hon. Friend aware that concern is felt in all parts of the House about the usual Channel link fixers, who have arranged for the debate on a motion for the Adjournment, which is unamendable? Is he aware that the so-called consultative process to which he referred is in danger of becoming a farce, because journalists have been told that on 15 or 16 January the winner of the fixed link contract will be announced? If that is so, the decision will have been made with indecent haste and unnecessary secrecy, and without all the facts being presented to the House. Parliament is in danger of being fobbed off.

Mr. Biffen: I cannot accept that. It is a caricature of the Government's position. There is nothing extraordinary


about great decisions being taken on the basis of motions on the Adjournment. If it was enough to bring down Neville Chamberlain, it is enough for many of the other decisions in the House. We must see how the debate goes on Monday. There is no doubt that it will be an important part in the consultative process of making decisions and judgments on the issue.

Mr. Peter Bruinvels: May I remind my right hon. Friend of a question posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir J. Fan) about the racial awareness unit courses being conducted by Leicester city council? Is he aware that today, in response to questions by the Leicester Mercury, the leader of the Labour group, Councillor Peter Soulsby, said that he would deny the opportunity to all council employees in Leicester to carry on working if they declined or refused—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Is the hon. Gentleman asking about business next week, because he must?

Mr. Bruinvels: The point is that many of my constituents who work for the council are feeling threatened, and I am asking my right hon. Friend to find time next week for a debate on an important matter. Citizens of Leicester who work for the city council are being denied the opportunity to work if they refuse to go on a racial awareness unit course, which is a scandal. Should not my right hon. Friend find time for such a debate?

Mr. Biffen: I understand my hon. Friend's point. I admire the skill, tenacity and effectiveness with which he brings it before the House and, indeed, before the public in Leicester. I fear that there will not be Government time next week for such a debate, but we are moving into that part of the Session where there are more opportunities than usual for Back-Bench Members. I wish my hon. Friend every success in that direction.

UNESCO

The Minister for Overseas Development (Mr. Timothy Raison): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement about the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.
Britain played a prominent part in the creation of UNESCO. We continue to support the ideals and objectives contained in its constitution, but the House will be aware of the Government's long-standing doubt about the effectiveness with which UNESCO has been pursuing them. Among our concerns is the degree to which its work has been harmfully politicised; the organisation has been used to attack those very values which it was designed to uphold. Then there has been inefficient management. That has led to programmes which contain vague and meaningless studies, duplication with the work of other agencies, and lack of discrimination in the creation of projects. There have been serious weaknesses in staff management, and excessive expenditure and staffing at the Paris headquaters.
Although we have put forward firm proposals for reform and worked hard, particularly at the recent general conference at Sofia, to secure their adoption, the results, in our judgment, fall well short of what we believe could justify continued British membership. The Government have therefore decided that the notice to leave given by my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary in his letter of 5 December 1984 to the Director-General will not be withdrawn. The United Kingdom will cease to be a member from 31 December 1985.
That decision is in no way aimed at the United Nations system as a whole. But we are determined that our support for the United Nations should be seen as support for effective and efficient organisations. Unfortunately, UNESCO is not such a body.
We shall not be cutting back on international cooperation in the fields now covered by UNESCO. The money saved from our contribution will be used through the aid programme to further educational, scientific and other activities designed to benefit developing countries, particularly in the Commonwealth. In this way there will be more support for education, for the most part to be carried out through the British Council. We have particularly in mind increased allocations for training in this country for students from poor countries in the Commonwealth and elsewhere. In science, we shall certainly continue to support the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission and the international geological correlation programme, and make other arrangements for assisting international science, including, for example, programmes in soil and water management in arid and semi-arid countries in Africa. We shall give further details to the House in due course.
Because of the importance that we attach to the underlying principles of UNESCO's work, the Government plan to maintain observer status in the organisation. It is sad that an organisation which began with such high hopes and to which this country has contributed so much should have gone so wrong. We have to deal with what the organisation has become. We must


resolutely ensure that the resources saved for the aid programme, as a result of leaving UNESCO, are spent in the most useful way.

Mr. George Foulkes: We have just heard a shabby and disgraceful statement. It is a kick in the teeth for the Third world and it is another step on the road to Britain's isolation in the world. Will the Minister confirm that all informed commentators reported that, at the UNESCO conference in Sofia, substantial progress was made towards the reforms demanded by the British Government? The need for reform was the basis of our notice of withdrawal. That notice should be rescinded, not confirmed.
Will the Minister concede that all the countries of the Commonwealth, our EC partners, all the members of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, the United Kingdom Commission for UNESCO, and all but one of the speakers who participated in our debate on UNESCO, urged the British Government to stay within UNESCO? Does he accept that the decision announced today shows that the Government's so-called consultation was a farce, a sham, and a fraud?
Will the Minister confess to the House that yesterday Mr. John Kerr, the political counsellor at our embassy in Washington, informed Mr. Milton Korner of the US State Department of this decision? That was done before the House and even the Cabinet were informed. That proves that the withdrawal is another pathetic capitulation to United States pressure. The Minister claims that the money released will stay with the overseas development budget. We support that, but it is no substitute for the effective, multilateral co-operation of UNESCO.
The Minister's heart is not in this statement as he clearly disagrees with what he is forced to say. I am surprised that he is able to continue in office. I assure the House, the country and, above all, our friends in the Commonwealth, the Community and beyond that after the next election the Labour Government will restore Britain to its rightful place in UNESCO.

Mr. Raison: The hon. Gentleman said that this is a kick in the teeth for the Third world. The details that I gave in my statement about what we will do to support science, education and culture in the Third world shows that that is simply not the case.
The hon. Gentleman claimed that there was substantial progress at Sofia. There was some progress, but not enough in many important areas; and the results of Sofia were disappointing.
Of course, there have been strong expressions of opinion against the decision to leave UNESCO, but equally strong opinion has been in favour of this decision, including the opinion of some distinguished scholars.
What the hon. Gentleman said about information given in Washington is untrue. Throughout the whole of the operation we have never been subjected to pressure from the United States Government to leave UNESCO.

Sir Anthony Kershaw: The indignation generated by the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) is far beyond what is reasonale and rings false. Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the many distinguished academics and others who have been in favour of withdrawal? No one can accuse such people as Ralf Dahrendorf, Lord Blake or Sir Alan Cockerell of being nasty, narrow nationalists.
Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Select Committee hoped that it would be possible to reform UNESCO from within? We are sorry to hear that the Government do not think that that is possible and are only partly assuaged by the fact that much of the resources previously made available to UNESCO will be devoted under the national banner to the same admirable purposes.

Mr. Raison: My hon. Friend is right about the rather spurious, exaggerated indignation shown by the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes). It is true that a number of distinguished scholars have supported our decision, including, apart from those mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Sir A. Kershaw), Lord Annan. I read with care and attention what the Select Committee, which is chaired by my hon. Friend, had to say.
Although I accept that there has been some reform, it is our judgment that the degree of reform achieved is insufficient.

Mr. Tony Benn: The reasons that the Minister gave today will not be believed outside the ranks of his own party. It is known that the United States wished the British Government to leave UNESCO, and to that extent reinforced the Government's hostility to the international organisation. Britain's decision to withdraw comes at a time when President Reagan, at the recent summit with Mr. Gorbachev, has announced that the United States would enter into educational, scientific and cultural arrangements with the Societ Union with a view to building a more peaceful world. At that moment the Government decide to kick the principle of universality out of their own thinking.
The damage will be done to Britain, and it will be a price that we shall have to pay. We were one of the prime founders of UNESCO and played a notable part in making it meaningful. We are perfectly able to continue to operate within UNESCO if the Government are not hostile to its real purpose, which is to build peace in the minds of men.

Mr. Raison: The right hon. Gentleman has a mania of finding conspiracy wherever he looks. We have been under no pressure from the United States Government to make this decision. They have pursued their policy quite independently of our own. I say firmly to the right hon. Gentleman that, although we have decided that this international organisation is not doing its job effectively, that in no sense means that we are opposed to international organisations or the United Nations.

Mr. Robert Rhodes James: As a former senior official at the United Nations, this is a sad occasion for me. It is sad because the Government are absolutely right, not because they are wrong. UNESCO has become a disgrace to international organisations. It has a reputation which is perverted from its original intentions I look forward to the day when this nation can rejoin a truly United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.

Mr. Raison: My hon. Friend speaks with considerable authority, both as a scholar and as a former servant of the United Nations. I suggest that Opposition members listen carefully to what he says. If conditions change radically, we shall be able to think again about the matter in the future.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: This was preeminently a Cabinet decision and I am sure that the Minister, to his credit, was almost certainly opposed to it. It would have been more appropriate if the decision had been announced to the House by a member of the Cabinet who believed in this foolish and short-sighted decision.
How can the Government pretend that they wish to advance political co-operation in Europe when they ignore the unanimous advice of our partners on a matter such as this?

Mr. Raison: My right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary has an extremely important meeting in Madrid this afternoon and therefore cannot be here. I am the Minister who has had responsibility for dealing with UNESCO throughout the past two years and it is right that I should be making the statement.

Mr. Mark Carlisle: I accept and welcome my right hon. Friend's assurance that the money saved will be spent in other parts of the aid budget. However, is it not a fact that the decision will be bitterly regretted throughout the Commonwealth? Is it not in real danger of being misunderstood as the turning of Britain's back on the developing world?

Mr. Raison: I respect the views of my right hon. and learned Friend, but I put it to him that the measures that I have announced on which we shall spend the money that will be saved by leaving UNESCO will be of direct practical value to and will be welcomed by the Commonwealth. I accept that opposition has been expressed by Commonwealth countries, but it is notable that they did not raise the matter at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Nassau, when they had every chance to do so.

Mr. Guy Barnett: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell the House exactly how much practical good will come as a consequence of this decision? Does he realise that the lack of the British subscription will cut some of the most valuable work that UNESCO undertakes, that many of the abuses to which he objects will continue regardless and that we shall lose all the influence over the future of UNESCO which we have been able to exert over the past year? It cannot be true that the sort of work that UNESCO has done can be undertaken by the British Council, however good that organisation may be.

Mr. Raison: Much of the work that UNESCO is doing is not worth doing, whereas all the things that we intend to do with the money that will be saved will be thoroughly worth while.

Mr. Bowen Wells: Does my right hon. Friend accept that his announcement will be received with deep sadness and will be greeted by many of my right hon. and hon. Friends with a certain degree of bitterness? We shall leave our friends in UNESCO to argue our case and continue the battle that my right hon. Friend began so well and pursued with such vigilance. The case that the British nation wishes to be argued embraces the philosophies, language and cultural traditions which we enjoy and have been able to spread throughout the world through the auspices of UNESCO. We shall leave our friends alone and they will bitterly regret our absence. I ask my right hon. Friend to accept that it cannot be in Britain's interests to reduce our influence in such an important international organisation.

Mr. Raison: I understand that my hon. Friend feels strongly about these matters. However, we worked extremely hard, as I think is recognised on both sides of the House, to secure reform within UNESCO, right up to the conference at Sofia. When it came to the crunch, the degree of reform that we were able to achieve in certain very important areas was, in our judgment, not enough. That is why we have made this decision.

Mr. Mark Fisher: Does the Minister understand that many Members on both sides of the House consider this to be a dark day for Britain and the Third world, and that the Government's decision will do nothing to further education interests? Will he tell us what areas of dissatisfaction he believes were not satisfied by the reforms over the past year? Will he confirm that the British Council has not requested that money should be transferred to it and that it believes that the money would be much better spent through UNESCO?

Mr. Raison: The British Council has expressed no formal views on this issue. Our dissatisfaction covers a number of grounds, but three of the most important are the failure to achieve the progress that we believe to be essential on the so-called major programme 13, the failure to achieve an effective switch of resources from the more useless activities to the more useful, and the fact that no one can possibly say that the deep-seated management problems which afflict the organisation have been resolved.

Viscount Cranborne: Since when have the views of academics invariably been synonymous with common sense? This decision is surely a victory for common sense. As one of the contentious issues has been UNESCO's push for a new world information order, will my right hon. Friend consider diverting some of the funds that would otherwise have gone to UNESCO to the coffers of the BBC's overseas service?

Mr. Raison: The views of academics are as varied on this issue as are the views of many others. It is our intention that the money saved by withdrawing from UNESCO should pass through the aid programme to fulfil functions in the realm of education, science and culture that can properly be funded by that programme. I cannot give my hon. Friend an assurance that the money will go to the BBC's overseas service.

Mr. Eric Deakins: Which countries in Europe and in the Commonwealth support Britain in the disgraceful decision that has been announced this afternoon?

Mr. Raison: Singapore has announced that it is leaving as well.

Mr. Robert Jackson: I believe that the Government have made a regrettable decision which can be blamed in part on the past neglect of UNESCO by successive Governments. Does my right hon. Friend think that this decision will make it easier or more difficult for the reform party in UNESCO to bring about the dismissal of Mr. M'Bow when his time comes up in a couple of years?

Mr. Raison: It is impossible to make a firm judgment on what the impact will be in that direction.

Mr. David Alton: Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that it is ironic that a


Government who introduced full-cost fees for overseas students and who have been cutting students' grants should use the UNESCO peg on which to hang their policies? Does he further accept also that the Council for Education in the Commonwealth has registered its formal opposition to the decision? Is this not another example of Britain turning in on itself and a sign of national creeping xenophobia? Is it not a bad day when an organisation such as the Heritage Foundation can have so much influence on the House and on the American Government, too?

Mr. Raison: The hon. Gentleman should try to forget the influence of the Heritage Foundation, which has been grossly exaggerated in this matter. The announcement that I have made this afternoon offers the clear prospect of additional help to Commonwealth students, especially from poor countries, who come to Britain to receive the advantages of our extremely good education system.

Mr. Andrew MacKay: Does my right hon. Friend agree that if Opposition Members genuinely want to improve educational, scientific and cultural assistance to the Third world, they should be congratulating him on his brave decision today? The Third world will receive far better value for money in those areas by our direct assistance than our funding of Mr. M'Bow and his bloated bureaucracy in UNESCO.

Mr. Raison: I believe that my hon. Friend makes a good point. Many of UNESCO's activities are not cost effective, whereas the scholarships and technical co-operation that we provide are highly cost effective and well regarded. I am sure that they will be used to good effect.

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: How many students from overseas will be able to come to Britain in 1986 as a result of this decision? How far will it go to restoring the number of overseas students that the Government have cut since 1979? What consideration has been given to the British educational book trade? The moneys that are spent on education in other countries may go to English-speaking countries other than the United Kingdom.

Mr. Raison: I cannot say exactly how many students will come to Britain through the new programmes or measures that we are taking. I shall keep the House informed.
It is not possible to give a definite answer to the hon. Gentleman's question about books. It is not possible to say that the books that are produced by British publishers and sold to UNESCO will cease to be sold to the organisation in future. That remains to be seen.

Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Will my right hon. Friend accept that I am absolutely delighted that more Commonwealth students from foreign countries will be given help to come here? It is crucial to our future relations with the Commonwealth both industrially and culturally. Will he, as soon as possible, give us a little additional information as to how those students will be selected?

Mr. Raison: My hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head. I assure her and the House that I will try as soon as possible to give details of the ways in which we will implement our policy.

Mr. Ken Eastham: There will be very deep resentment by many of the religious bodies

throughout the country at the announcement that has been made today by the Minister. Is it not a fact that the very first UNESCO meeting took place in this city at the behest of our Government, and that it costs us a very small amount of money, possibly about £5 million a year, to be a member? Can we justify and pretend to ourselves that we are going to kid the Third world that the decision made today will really help the needs of those people?

Mr. Raison: I hope and believe—perhaps hope rather than believe—that the religious bodies will think very carefully about whether we can use this money more effectively for the kind of purposes that they support through the British aid programme rather than through UNESCO with all its inefficiencies.

Mr. Ian Lloyd: First, I assure my right hon. Friend that I support this sad but inevitable decision of the Government.
Are there not two lessons to be learnt? First, any international organisation, however noble its aspirations, can very easily be wrecked on the reefs of Left-wing extremism. Secondly, our constituents, although they may have the most profound sympathy for the Third world, resent it very much when institutions of this kind, largely supported by Western money, are employed by their representatives to launch a continuous, damaging and unscrupulous attack on the values of the West which keeps the whole show on the road.

Mr. Raison: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is no doubt that one of the problems has been the way in which through the years UNESCO has been used to launch the kind of attacks that my hon. Friend has described. Those attacks come not only, as it were, formally at the public meetings and conferences of UNESCO, but very often through the documentation that is prepared under the auspices of UNESCO.
As to his comment about Left-wing extremism wrecking organisations, the Opposition have very good reason to know that that applies not only to international bodies, but to domestic bodies.

Mr. David Winnick: Since it is known that the Minister has argued privately against the decision, does he not feel humiliated by having to tell us of this shameful decision, which clearly has been taken—as everybody knows—at the behest of the United States? Does he not realise that if this is a victory, it is a victory for all the bigots, all those who are against the United Nations and its associated bodies, and that we, as a country, should indeed be hurt and shamed by what he has announced today?

Mr. Raison: I defy the hon. Gentleman to produce any evidence whatsoever that this decision is in response to pressure from the United States.

Mr. Robert Key: In his capacity as chairman of the United Kingdom National Commission for UNESCO, will my right hon. Friend accept that I and most of the other members of the United Kingdom National Commission will be very sorry at this decision, but that we will stay in the arena of debate and will seek to work for the restoration of Britain to full status in UNESCO?

Mr. Raison: I recognise that my hon. Friend is a member of the National Commission. I did, of course, attend the long discussion that took place in the National Commission the other day, and I listened carefully to what


it had to say. The part that its members may play in future discussions about these matters in their own private lives is, of course, essentially for them.

Mr. Nigel Spearing: Does the Minister agree that, whatever the views of any individual or Government, there is one thing in common—that reforms in UNESCO are urgently necessary? In view of that fact, do not Her Majesty's Government's actions constitute an abdication of international responsibility which will be seen as such by people inside the Commonwealth and by nations and foreign offices throughout the world? In that respect, will not Britain's influence be diminished? Is he aware that the Prime Minister said earlier today that this decision was in Britain's interests? Will he tell us what interests will be gained by this decision?

Mr. Raison: We have worked throughout for reform in UNESCO. I think that that is recognised on all sides. However, the fact of the matter is that a year ago we gave notice of our intention to depart unless we could honestly see that a sufficient degree of reform had been achieved by the end of the year. It is our judgment that that degree of reform has not been achieved, and that is why we are fulfilling the notice that we gave a year ago.

Mr. Colin Moynihan: I support this afternoon's statement, but will my right hon. Friend give an assurance that in no circumstances will the additional resources going to the British Council be seen as a substitute in the future for giving money to the British Council per se?

Mr. Raison: I am confident that I can give my hon. Friend that assurance.

Mr. J. F. Pawsey: Will my right hon. Friend say how much is being saved by this action? Will he confirm that all that money will be spent on Third world countries? Can he also tell the House what action he will be taking to strengthen the British Council?

Mr. Raison: Our estimate of what our subscription would have been next year is £6.4 million. As I have said, that money will be devoted to programmes connected with the purposes of the aid programme.

Sir Anthony Meyer: Is my right hon. Friend aware that he will have retained the admiration which is felt for him on both sides of the House by the way in which he has handled the very painful decision he has had to announce today? Is he further aware that it is never a good idea to walk out, as the Social Democrats have discovered, because one consigns oneself to oblivion and weakens the strength of the reformers who are left? Does he recall the French saying that those who are not there are always wrong?

Mr. Raison: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his kind personal words, but I remind him that in fact there have been instances of reform in the past which have followed from the departure of a country. I am thinking of the ILO.

Mr. Toby Jessel: Can my right hon. Friend confirm that only about 30 per cent. of UNESCO's staff are out in the field and that the other 70 per cent., or about 2,500 people, are in the headquarters in Paris where

the director-general, Mr. M'Bow, has surrounded himself with little Yes-men who share his prejudices and whom he has jumped up over the heads of experienced senior staff whose morale has declined catastrophically? Has not the rot gone too far so that the only answer now is major surgery?

Mr. Raison: In fact, the figure for those who work in Paris is higher than that given by my hon. Friend. I believe that 75 per cent. of the staff are working in Paris. There is absolutely no doubt that many things are wrong with the management of the organisation. We have sought to reform them. Some progress has been made, but not enough, and that is why we are leaving.

Mr. Edward Leigh: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, contrary to claims that UNESCO has reformed itself, Radio Prague and other bastions of liberty have in recent weeks openly boasted that UNESCO has remained true to its "Socialist principles"? In particular, the new world information order, which surely is as abhorrent to Western ideals of democracy as UNESCO spending 70 per cent. of its budget in Paris, is abhorrent to our belief that aid should be directed at peoples of the Third world, not at the bureaucrats in the capital cities of the world.

Mr. Raison: I am not aware of the point that my hon. Friend has made about Radio Prague, but it is certainly very telling.

Mr. Keith Best: Will my right hon. Friend say what consideration, if any, was given by the Cabinet to the expression of opinion by the House, and what the result was of that consideration? How will this country influence developments in UNESCO after 31 December this year? Why is it that no other European country has announced its intention to withdraw from UNESCO? Finally, will he set out the precise requirements precedent to this country rejoining UNESCO, so that at least UNESCO and the rest of the world will know what has to be fulfilled and so that we can once more participate fully in international affairs?

Mr. Raison: The Government in their consideration of this matter thought carefully about what was said in the debate in the House the other day. I have said that other European countries are not going down the path that we are taking, but this is a matter on which each country has to make its own decision, and we have come to the one which we believe to be right.
With regard to stating this afternoon the conditions precedent which we would have to seek if we were to contemplate rejoining the organisation, I think that it would not be appropriate at this stage to set them out.

Mr. Nicholas Fairbairn: As a non-academic, I congratulate my right hon. Friend on this decision and ask him to note that the heart-on-sleeve doctrine of Labour Members is that it is better to spend money on international bureaucracies—provided that they are of the Left—than on human beings in need. Would it not be reasonable, if we were ever to rejoin this wretched organisation, to require it to live in the Third world, not in the middle of Paris?

Mr. Raison: My hon. and learned Friend makes a forceful point. One of the problems with UNESCO is that


it is over-concentrated in Paris. That has been pointed out for some time, and not enough has been done to reverse it.

BILLS PRESENTED

BUILDING SOCIETIES

Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, supported by Mr. Ian Stewart, Mr. John Patten and Mr. Michael Howard, presented a Bill to make fresh provision with respect to building societies and further provision with respect to conveyancing services: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 6 December and to be printed. [Bill 19.]

PUBLIC ORDER

Mr. Secretary Hurd, supported by the Prime Minister, Mr. Secretary Younger, Mr. Secretary Edwards, Mr. Secretary Ridley, Mr. Secretary Baker, Mr. Solicitor-General and Mr. Giles Shaw, presented a Bill to abolish the common law offences of riot, rout, unlawful assembly and affray and certain statutory offences relating to public order, to create new offences relating to public order, to control public processions and assemblies, to control the stirring up of racial hatred, to provide for the exclusion of certain offenders from sporting events, to amend section 7 of the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act 1875, section 1 of the Prevention of Crime Act 1953, Part V of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1980 and the Sporting Events (Control of Alcohol etc.) Act 1985, to repeal certain obsolete or unnecessary enactments, and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 6 December and to be printed. [Bill 40.]

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.

Mr. Speaker: With the leave of the House, I will put the Questions on the three motions together.
Ordered,
That the Representation of the People (Amendment) Regulations 1985 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &amp;c.
The the draft Employment Protection (Variation of Limits) Order 1985 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &amp;c.
That the draft Unfair Dismissal (Increase of Limits of Basic and Special Awards) Order 1985 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &amp;c.—[Mr. Neubert.]

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, which arises from what you said in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd). Will you give further consideration to the problems arising from private Bills, particularly with regard to the fact that for most of the last century and early this century there was no alternative procedure for

someone to promote a measure such as the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Bill other than by means of a private Bill in this House? Since 1949, there have been planning procedures and the opportunity to hold a planning inquiry.
It is most unfortunate that hon. Members are now required to sit for long periods in private Bill Committees listening to what is, in effect, a planning inquiry. It causes considerable difficulties for hon. Members and is not satisfactory to the general public, in that hon. Members cannot be expected to give the same detailed attention to the procedure as is given by a planning inquiry inspector sitting with assessors.
In the past, it was the usual custom for such Committees to meet at the convenience of hon. Members, but the practice which seems to have developed of late is that the Committee meets at the convenience of the promoters of the Bill and the objectors to the Bill. I understand that in the case of the Felixstowe Docks and Railway Bill the promoters and objectors were consulted as to the days on which it would be convenient for them to sit. I understand also that the managing director of the Felixstowe dock insisted that the Committee should meet this week so that he could go to Japan either today or tomorrow.
If hon. Members are to be reported to the House for non-attendance at such Committee sittings, they should be consulted as to the sitting days. The four hon. Members asked to serve on the Bill should have been consulted, especially as two of them had questions on the Order Paper. They should not have been reported for not attending the Committee when they were not consulted about sitting days or times and had no opportunity to make representations on the matter.
I hope, Mr. Speaker, that you will give careful consideration to the point, because I think you indicated that there is no sanction on hon. Members if they do not attend a Committee other than to be reported to the House. I understand that if hon. Members wished to do so they could absent themselves from the Committee, thus destroying the quorum and making the proceedings unworkable. I hope that you will look carefully at all these matters, and either refer them to the Procedure Committee or perhaps make a statement to the House.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman may well be correct in what he says, but it is a matter for the Procedure Committee. As he well knows, I am bound by the Standing Orders and I have to enforce them. Private Bill Committees sit in a semi-judicial capacity. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to have the Standing Order changed, he should take the matter to the Procedure Committee.
The Standing Order lays down that hon. Members who are absent from a private Bill Committee are reported to the House. That is the only penalty. The hon. Gentleman might like to take up the other matter elsewhere.

Orders of the Day — Education (Amendment) Bill

Order for Second Reading read.

Mr. Clement Freud: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I reported to you that the terms of the Bill are so far removed from the Act which it seeks to amend that it cannot in practice or in equity be called an amending Bill. Perhaps you would consider that point. The Bill bears no resemblance to the concept of education support grants which were introduced so that curriculum training could be brought in. The original Act is being distorted to tackle the problem of lunchtime supervision.

Mr. Speaker: I do not have responsibility for the drafting of Bills. This is a Government Bill, and the purposes of it are set out in the Bill. It is a matter for debate in the Chamber. If the hon. Gentleman does not like the Bill, he has his remedy.

The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Sir Keith Joseph): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
Two years ago I introduced to the House a Bill to empower the holder of my office and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales to pay specific grants, known as education support grants, to local education authorities. That Bill became the Education (Grants and Awards) Act 1984, and gave my right hon. Friend and me power to promote expenditure for or in connection with educational purposes which it appeared to me or to my right hon. Friend that local education authorities should be encouraged to incur in the interests of education in England and Wales.
The regulations made with the approval of this House—the Education Support Grants Regulations 1984 and their amendments—prescribe a variety of purposes for which education support grant may be paid. All local education authorities have responded positively to invitations to put forward proposals for approval for grant support. Their bids have greatly exceeded the resources available. In the 1985–86 financial year, about £30 million of expenditure has been approved for support in England and £2 million in Wales. I am glad to see my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales sitting by my side. We expect later this month to announce approvals for a programme of £40 million in England and £2.6 million in Wales for 1986–87.
The 1984 Act included, in section 2(1), a provision that the total of expenditure approved for education support grant in any one year should not exceed one half of 1 per cent. of the amount determined by the holder of my office as representing, in his opinion, the appropriate amount of expenditure for local education authorities to incur in the year in question for educational purposes. We thought it right at that time to impose such a limit.
Some local authorities were anxious about the amount of expenditure which the Government might expect to redeploy to the specific purposes prescribed for education support grant. We wished to reassure them that the amount would be small, and deliberately arranged that the limit could be increased only through primary legislation.
Clause 1 raises the limit in section 2(1) of the 1984 Act to 1 per cent. This will allow an additional £52 million of expenditure to be approved next year in England and £3 million in Wales. We have a specific purpose in seeking that increase, namely, securing the supervision of pupils in schools at midday.
As I informed the House on 8 November, the Government intend to make available additional resources to assist local education authorities to achieve their longstanding aim of securing reliable and adequate supervision of pupils at midday in the interests of the orderly and efficient conduct of schools. In 1985–86 there is sufficient headroom within the existing limit to pay grant on this new activity. However, for later years we need the headroom which will be created by the amendment in clause 1.
Clause 2 excludes remuneration paid to teachers exclusively for midday supervision from the remuneration which is the subject of the Remuneration of Teachers Act 1965. The principal effect of the clause is to make it quite clear that remuneration for midday supervision is not to be subject to review by the Burnham committee or determination by the holder of my office.
The increase in the limit on expenditure for education support grant purposes from 0.5 per cent. to 1 per cent. of the planned total will permit my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales and me to use the additional headroom for any purpose prescribed in regulations. However, we recognise the continuing concern of many in the House and in local government about the balance between the power of Ministers to pay specific grant for purposes of national importance and the discretion of local authorities to meet local needs as they believe best.
My right hon. Friend and I intend, pending the outcome of the review of local government finance, to keep expenditure approved for education support grant in respect of activities other than midday supervision within the original limit of one half of 1 per cent. We intend to increase relevant expenditure for local authorities by £40 million next year in England and Wales to provide for midday supervision. This is "new" money, over and above our existing plans for education for that year. The Government will also add £28 million to aggregate Exchequer grant for 1986–87 to cover the 70 per cent. of that expenditure which they propose to reimburse through education support grants. I say "aggregate Exchequer grant" advisedly: I fear that the memorandum to the Bill makes a technical error in referring to this sum as added
to the aggregate amount of Rate Support Grants.
Thus 70 per cent. of the cost of new arrangements will be met by the taxpayer and 30 per cent. by the ratepayer. We will also increase relevant expenditure by £10 million and aggregate Exchequer grant by £7 million in 1985–86 to cover the cost of new arrangements for midday supervision where these can be introduced within this financial year.
The additional money will come from the £1,250 million envelope which the Government have said they are willing to make available if a satisfactory agreement can be reached on teachers' duties and on a new salary structure. I made it clear in August when I announced the Government's conditional offer of more resources for a new salary structure that part of those resources might be used to pay for midday supervision.
Teachers have long clamoured to have midday supervision removed from their duties. This duty was never popular with teachers. In 1967, a working party was set up to consider, and make recommendations on, the


position of teachers in relation to all aspects of the school meals service. Its recommendations for change were accepted by the then Secretary of State and by the local authority associations and teachers' unions, which were represented on the working party.
The 1945 regulations were amended in 1968 to remove the provision which authorised LEAs to require teachers to supervise pupils taking school meals. Since 1968 teachers have undertaken midday supervision in schools, but have insisted that they did so voluntarily and were free at any time to withdraw their services. That withdrawal of goodwill, as they called it, has come to be used as a weapon of disruption available at almost no cost to the teachers, but which can cause disruption to education in schools. It has been the source of sporadic difficulties for many years, but the current dispute over teachers' pay has led to escalation to the point where few secondary schools are unaffected. The work of schools has been seriously disturbed.

Mr. Jack Dormand: I would not normally intervene, but this is an important point. The Secretary of State has explained the circumstances that arose in 1968. He has made it clear that, in law, teachers have no necessity—the right hon. Gentleman called it duty—to undertake supervision. He cannot say that it is a withdrawal of goodwill, because they are not required to undertake that supervision. The hon. Gentleman should say that the teachers have shown goodwill since 1968 by undertaking to carry out these duties.

Sir Keith Joseph: The regulations were amended by the then Government. However, it is not for the hon. Gentleman or for the holder of my office to pronounce on what a court would find was implied by the contract between a local education authority and a teacher. That matter is for a court to decide if an employer wishes to test the case. I simply state that the regulations were amended in 1968.
Our principal and overriding aim in offering additional resources through education support grant is to ensure that pupils are effectively supervised at midday. We expect that these resources will be used to employ supervisors charged with that responsibility, under the overall authority of the head teacher or his deputy. These supervisors will be employed under separate contracts relating exclusively to midday supervision, under which no payment will be made if the contract is not honoured. These arrangements will not rely on the voluntary participation of teachers.

Mr. Tony Marlow: A teacher in my constituency came to me and made the point that teachers are not only responsible for teaching in class, but have other responsibilities as well. In his view, it is important that teachers are there during the lunch period, because that is part of the school, and their presence forms part of the impact that teachers can make on pupils. Why does my right hon. Friend not require teachers to be there at lunchtime? Many teachers have relatively short days and very long holidays. Why can they not take responsibility for lunchtime supervision as well?

Sir Keith Joseph: I respect the view of my hon. Friend's constituent. It will be for teachers to choose to do so if the local education authority wishes to offer them the opportunity to become paid supervisors of the midday period.
We do not intend to prescribe the details of new arrangements beyond what I have said. Individual authorities are best placed to determine matters such as staffing numbers and rates of pay in the light of their local needs and circumstances. The local education authorities have considered these matters, and a few of them have introduced, or are about to introduce, arrangements along the lines that we envisage. Moreover, authorities already employ many assistants to share in the task of midday supervision.
New arrangements will bring clarity to a long-confused situation for teachers. It will be for LEAs to decide whether teachers should be given the opportunity to participate, and up to teachers to decide whether to accept that opportunity by entering into a separate contract for midday supervision in addition to a normal teaching contract. At all events, those teachers who feel that they need a break to come fresh to their classes in the afternoon will not be pressed to participate in supervision. Teaching is often stressful, and I am sure that many teachers will be pleased to be relieved of that burden.
In conclusion, I believe that it is in the interests of all concerned with education in our schools—teachers and parents, but most especially pupils—to secure more effective arrangements for supervision at midday. The Bill will enable education support grants to be used to that end, and I commend it to the House.

Mr. Giles Radice: We oppose the Bill for three reasons. As I made clear on Second Reading of the Education (Grants and Awards) Bill 1984, we are not against the principle of specific grants, but we are against the way in which the education support grants are being funded. We are opposed to the Secretary of State removing money that the local authorities previously spent as they thought fit in the light of local circumstances and to the Secretary of State using that money for the purposes that he thinks fit.
The Secretary of State said that for 1986–87 the Government will be adding £28 million to the rate support grant to support the payment of supervision of pupils at midday. However, the right hon. Gentleman must accept that the LEAs will have to provide £12 million out of their resources. To receive a 70 per cent. grant, they must provide 30 per cent. from their money. In addition, because the Bill increases the amount of educational support from 0.5 per cent. of the total education grant to 1 per cent., the local education authorities will lose control over a further £12 million of what would otherwise have been their money.
As the Secretary of State reminded us, he said on 8 November in answer to a written question that he did not intend to use the extra 0.5 per cent. for anything other than midday supervision, but that was pending the outcome of the present review of local government finance. There is no guarantee that the payment for midday supervision will continue to be covered, for the most part, by additional rate support money. Knowing the Government, it is highly likely that it will have to come from the resources of local education authorities.
As the Secretary of State knows, local education authorities are financially hard pressed. The right hon. Gentleman said in a press release that the autumn statement will allow local authorities an extra 5 per cent. in cash over the sum allocated to the service in 1985–86.


That is one way of putting it, but it is misleading. We should consider what LEAs are spending in 1985–86. The Government are planning to reduce expenditure from the £11,000 million which the LEAs are spending in the current year to £10,935 million. They are planning a cash cut of £65 million which, allowing for inflation, is a real cut of 4.5 per cent.
The Secretary of State should provide local education authorities with additional resources to do something about the alarming deficiencies in educational provision, the shortages of books and equipment, the mismatch of teaching skills, and the inadequate repair and maintenance of so many schools, about which the Government's advisers—Her Majesty's inspectors—have so frequently warned. In previous years, when I made similar criticisms, the Secretary of State has made much play with the so-called unallocated margin available to LEAs to spend on education. But there is no unallocated margin for 1986–87; at least, one has not been announced. The truth—it is fully recognised by parents—is that the Secretary of State is doing little or nothing to tackle the growing crisis of provision in our classrooms. Against that background, and the tightening of educational resources, we condemn the Government's failure to provide new money to cover all education support grants.
The second main reason for our opposition to the Bill is its timing. Of course, there is a strong case for a fully staffed ancillary service for lunchtime supervision. The Secretary of State was right to say that teachers' unions have called for this in the past. We recognise that many head teachers have been under great pressure during the teachers' dispute, because in many schools they must cope almost singlehandedly with supervising duties. We also recognise that some LEAs are anxious to introduce schemes to pay for separate midday supervisors under separate contracts. But the fact that the Secretary of State is rushing through a Bill during the dispute, and without consulting teachers, is bound to be considered provocative. Teachers are also likely to resent the fact that the £40 million approved expenditure will come from the new money which the Secretary of State said was available, under certain conditions, for teachers' pay.
Our third reason for opposing the Bill is that we reject the Government's priorities. There is a glaring contrast between the Secretary of State's eagerness to rush through Parliament the Bill to pay for lunchtime supervision and his complete inactivity in solving the teachers' dispute. Since the right hon. Gentleman's initiative in early August, when he revealed at last the sum of money—it was inadequate—behind his structure package, he has confined himself to wringing his hands.
The Government have recently made strenuous efforts to improve their presentation. In October, we had the Prime Minister's extraordinary one-day conference at Downing street, to which she invited, among others, the controversial Ray Honeyford and those educational reactionaries, Baroness Cox and Dr. John Marks. In November, there was a widely leaked meeting of senior Ministers, including Lord Whitelaw and the chairman of the Tory party, to discuss tactics. According to newspaper reports, they decided to sit it out, hoping that parents would turn against the teachers and forget about the Government's inactivity.
Thirdly, there was the appointment of the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Patten) as Minister of State, Department of Education and Science. I congratulate him on that appointment. However, I must say that his duties are somewhat ill-defined. It seems to many observers that the hon. Gentleman has been appointed as a glorified public relations consultant to the Secretary of State. He has been hired to put a more attractive gloss on the Government's education policies, especially in relation to the teachers' dispute.
We all know that the Secretary of State could do with a facelift, but I must tell the Minister and the Secretary of State that no amount of fancy presentation can make up for lack of policy and action. The teachers' dispute has lasted for more than 10 months—

Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Thanks to the National Union of Teachers.

Mr. Radice: —and parents and teachers alike are crying out for the Government to take action that will result in a just solution. I very much hope that the meeting of the teachers—

Mr. Marlow: Is this in order?

Mr. Radice: I am in order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am discussing the reasons why we shall oppose the Bill, and I am explaining—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Ernest Armstrong): Order. The Chair will decide when an hon. Member is out of order. The hon. Gentleman should not take note of comments made from a sedentary position.

Mr. Radice: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for your extremely wise advice. I shall remember that in future.
I very much hope that the meeting of the teachers' panel today will lead to the reopening of negotiations with employers—

Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: Tell the teachers that.

Mr. Radice: I do not know whether the hon. Lady has been following the dispute. I suspect that she has not.

Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: The hon. Lady has been following this dispute with the greatest possible care because she is extremely interested in education, but she regrets very much that the monopoly power of the NUT has prevented the other unions from getting a word in edgeways and discussing the package put forward by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.

Mr. Radice: The hon. Lady is not entirely up to date with events. The NUT has lost its overall majority on the teachers' panel, and I understand that at today's meeting there was a decision to reopen negotiations—

Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: Precisely because of that.

Mr. Radice: —not on the structure package, but on the previous informal offer by the employers. I must tell the hon. Lady and the House that, even if there is a settlement before Christmas, as I hope, no one can seriously believe that such an agreement can be more than an interim solution. The main teachers' unions have already drawn up plans—or are in the process of doing so—for a new claim for next year which the LEAs will be unable to satisfy from their resources.
The dispute could continue to disrupt our schools during next year. It is because I view that prospect with


such dismay—I hope that the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) does, too—that I make no apology for urging the Government yet again to set up an inquiry into teachers' pay. The Government and the Secretary of State have continually ducked or avoided my requests for such an inquiry. They may be doing that because they wish to keep the option open. If that is the case, why not set up the inquiry now instead of waiting until our education system crumbles? Perhaps the Secretary of State finds it embarrassing to appear to give way to an Opposition demand. I promise that if he sets up an inquiry I shall stop asking for it.
The Bill is not only ill-timed; it does nothing to tackle the desperate shortage of money and crisis of provision in our schools. Above all, it will do nothing to bring an end to the teachers' dispute, which should be the Secretary of State's top priority. For those reasons, we shall oppose the Bill.

Mr. Alan Haselhurst: I recognise that the Bill is undoubtedly overshadowed by the teachers' dispute, but the hon. Member for Durham, North (Mr. Radice) seemed to have to wallow considerably in that dispute in order to make any kind of reason for the Opposition's intention to vote against the Bill. When one examines the Bill, it is rather difficult to justify that.
The Bill touches upon the dispute; there can be no argument about that. The fact that the problem of lunchtime supervision is being addressed in this way says a lot about the ineffectiveness of the usual machinery for resolving what might be thought to be a fairly routine matter. It also seems to say even more about the nature of the teachers' contract that such an ingredient should be missing from it. The Bill is obviously tied up with the teachers' dispute to some extent, but it reinforces my view that the Government are right to insist that pay and conditions of service must be brought together. Simply because that combination has not yet been achieved does not mean that there is something so unique about the teaching profession that it is an unattainable combination.
Any professional person used to negotiation can find a way of bringing those matters together in a sensible manner. Therefore, if there is continuing reluctance on the teachers' part to admit of that possibility, it may have something to do with the fact that they recognise that their rule book may be being bought out.
There may be a lesson for teachers in the Bill. I should have thought that today demonstrated to them that the Government are prepared to buy and are prepared to put good money on the table—money which is new to teachers. Forget whether it is new money in the sense of the total education budget; this is new money that is being offered to teachers. At the same time, the Government are prepared not only to tackle that matter but, in so doing, to deal with an issue which, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said, has been a bone of contention with the teaching profession for a long time.
Teachers should note that and recognise for a change that there is some goodwill on the part of the Government. They seem so utterly disbelieving of the fact that the Government are capable of any genuine or generous act towards them and that is extremely worrying. Many in the profession will recognise that much of the work to which my right hon. Friend has set his hand is educationally valuable. But when it comes to teachers' remuneration and

conditions of service, they seem unable to see any good whatever in what the Government say. It is about time that they began to recognise that there is some goodwill and they should be negotiating in that spirit.

Mr. Harry Greenway: Does my hon. Friend agree that pay and conditions of service are vital and much under discussion and that the problem of pay brings us to the centre of the argument? Should not there now be an inquiry into pay provided that it is linked with conditions of service? If the two can come together, will he join me in urging our right hon. Friend towards such an inquiry?

Mr. Haselhurst: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I shall answer that in a slightly different way from the manner in which he has raised it.
I am disturbed that teachers are not even prepared to negotiate despite the willingness on the part of the Government to put money on the table, and the Bill represents a part of the money which the Government are prepared to put on the table.
I do not speak with the responsibility which my right hon. Friend and his colleagues have to carry, so I can advert to other ways in which the dispute may go. I would be inclined to say that if teachers would for one moment suspend their disbelief and look at the possibilities of what is being offered, it might well be that through negotiations about new money directed towards certain purposes an outcome could be reached which might be more generous in 1985 terms than they previously believed.
I would not say right from the start of negotiations that there could be any concessions on the main elements which the Government are seeking. There should not be. It would not be realistic for extra money to be put up front from 1985 simply in order to get that dispute out of the way. We would not have advanced the cause of the teachers' profession in any way by such an exercise.
We must get matters right in the long term. If teachers went into negotiations with the Government, they might, as the price of the final settlement, find a package which was agreeable to them now as well as in the medium and long term. Therefore, I can only say to them that they should not exclude any possible results of a negotiation when there is such evidence of the Government's willingness to negotiate with a sizeable sum of money available for all to see.
If there is a lesson for the teachers in the Bill, the Government might also derive a lesson from what they themselves are doing. Here we have an instrument of primary legislation being used to tackle an aspect of a complex dispute. My right hon. Friend might begin to see that there might be merits in that method of proceeding in connection with other aspects of the dispute. It might be that, if appraisal were to be pursued by legislation, the costs associated with a system of appraisal might also be tackled by primary legislation.
Other aspects in the dispute could be tackled by primary legislation, if that is the only way that the Government can impact upon what is proving to be a most intractable problem. That may be a lesson for the Government or for the teachers.
Legislation might be time-consuming, but it can do what the Government want it to do with the approval of the House. Teachers might conclude that it was better for


everyone's sake, not least their own, if they got on with the negotiations and there would then be less need for us to consider recourse to legislation.
As I have said, it is hard to see what, in terms of the sheer mechanics of the Bill, the Opposition can be arguing about. There is a problem and it is a problem of lunchtime supervision, and there is a means through education support grants to deal with that problem. I can see nothing wrong in using the ESG system in that way. We are still talking of a maximum ceiling of 1 per cent. of educational expenditure.
The question arises whether the Government are right to tackle the problem separate from a dispute of which it forms part. I can say only that if the Opposition seek to divide the House it must be an illustration that they are fully behind the teachers in the dispute. If they were just concerned with dealing with this problem, they could not possibly object to the measure. Quite apart from the urgent need to overcome the problems flowing from unsupervised lunch periods, the measure is to be welcomed if its effect is to remove one of the obstacles on the road towards a settlement of the pay dispute. If only the teachers recognised that that is the Government's approach—an attempt to remove the obstacles—perhaps they would join hands with the negotiators and the Government to ensure that the other obstacles were removed as well.

6 pm

Mr. Clement Freud: Unlike the hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. Haselhurst), I can see very good reasons for opposing the Bill. I believe that it is an abuse of education support grant funding. The Bill is depressingly irrelevant and illogical, and its title is a deception in that the measure bears no resemblance to the concept of education support grants.
The Select Committee report on which the notion of such support grants is supposed to be based stated that there were two possible justifications for the amount of centralisation involved. I remind the Secretary of State that the Select Committee never envisaged that the money would be found by withdrawing funds from the local education authorities but thought that this would be new money to give the Secretary of State the power that he needed to invoke innovation.
The Committee's first suggestion was legitimate pump priming, which it described as:
Such experimental or innovative schemes which it"—
that is, the Department of Education and Science—
considers of potential national importance".
I would argue that lunchtime supervision is not covered by that.
The second justification was the removal of some elements of educational expenditure from the block grant, justifiable where short-term exigencies have resulted in what the Committee described as
A dangerously inequitable distribution of activity in an area which has important medium and long term implications".
I remember well that the Committee had in mind the disparity in the provision of teacher training from one area to another; it was certainly not lunchtime supervision.
The DES consultative document issued in March 1983 which launched the Government's proposals for these grants stated that the powers involved were:
To assist LEAs to innovate and respond swiftly to new demands on the education service, to promote qualitative

changes and improvements in standards of provision in areas of particular importance and to encourage them to redeploy their expenditure".
That does not include lunchtime supervision.
During the Second Reading of the Education (Grants and Awards) Bill the Secretary of State summed up the purposes of the Bill as
assisting in the financing of pilot projects within a limited number of authorities, the results of which could be of potential benefit to all authorities".—[Official Report, 14 November 1983; Vol. 48, c. 630.]
The clear implication was—this is borne out by the kind of projects since funded and about which so many of us have asked questions that have been properly answered—that ESGs were to fund curriculum developments. I seriously question whether lunchtime supervision can be discussed in the same terms.
It seems to me that the problem of the midday break has, at least as the Minister understands it, about as much to do with curriculum developments as with parking parents' cars in the school car park. Both functions are probably necessary, but I do not believe that they qualify under ESG.
The situation is made worse by increasing the proportion of LEA money reclaimed for use at the Secretary of State's own discretion, especially as the actual proportion of the budget—excluding teachers' pay—over which the LEA has control is only about 30 per cent. As the right hon. Gentleman well knows, most of that money is already committed.
The Secretary of State is thus asking for control over a larger piece of the education cake to be used for an entirely different purpose than was intended by the Act that he is seeking to amend. As well as having very little to do with curriculum development, this Bill has nothing to do with what actually goes on in schools at lunchtime. It deals with supervision in isolation from the other activities that take pe, or do not take place, when there is no dispute. We are at risk in finding schools in which the teachers will be on strike when it comes to teaching, but will be available and working when it comes to lunchtime supervision.
For the past few years, the Government's expenditure plans have picked out school meals as the area of the largest target saving. Those plans have been proved to be unrealistic, largely as a result of the increase in poverty among families with school age children. The school meals service is being systematically undermined.
The Black report was unequivocal about the importance of school meals to the poorest children, as was the NACNE report about the role of diet in health. There are also questions about food allergies and children's behaviour. For example, there seems to be a relationship between some additives and hyperactivity, and those additives are found in precisely the foods that children will choose if unguided. However, no element in lunchtime supervision will be educative.
Now we have the Fowler report that threatens the entitlement of children of poorly paid families to a full school meal by giving the school meal element of family credit to the working parents. We could redeem the irrelevance of this Bill by doing something about health education, and that would count as curriculum development. However, the Bill does not make clear the sort of supervision that the Government want to see.
The DES working party to which reference has already been made was clear that variety would be essential. It


says that there were certainly schools where provision would have to be more generous than the norm, for instance,
because of special problems arising from the school buildings or school organisation, or in a secondary school where there is an unusually low proportion of older children".
What sort of ratios are the Government thinking about, and what role do they envisage for head teachers? What does the Secretary of State feel about the need for national agreement such as the head teachers have called for? In choosing the mechanism of ESG, presumably he has rejected this. It would be interesting to know.
Does the right hon. Gentleman envisage supervision by teachers or non-teachers? If predominantly the latter, is he satisfied that lunchtimes can legitimately be taken out of the context of the school day as a whole and that non-teachers will be able to command the authority of children as do the teachers? The head teachers do not believe that that will be so.

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: rose—

Mr. Freud: I shall not give way, because I am trying to finish within my allotted time.
If this Bill is the first recognition that pay and conditions must go together, or if at the very least it is intended as a slightly clearer definition of teachers' duties—as the alliance has been arguing since the start of the dispute—why not tackle that issue rather than play around by amending an Act and changing its substance in a way that is hard to understand? This measure does not tackle the issue of low pay among teachers. Will the payment of lunchtime duties be used as an excuse to keep basic rates of pay down, along the lines of, "If you want more money you have only to supervise school lunches"? If that is so, we are falling into the trap of merit money to which the alliance is so opposed.
This is the Secretary of State taking direct action because LEAs have not managed an agreement on his terms and by his deadline, when in fact his interventions are the main cause of that failure.
The biggest criticism of the Bill is that it does not make sense. The Secretary of State is in an untenable position. On the one hand, he tells us that he will pay for lunchtime supervision for this financial year from the money that is still spare from existing ESG, but that prompts one to ask what he would have done had this not occurred. On the other hand, he is telling us that for the next financial year lunchtime supervision will be paid out of the £1.25 billion that he has made available.
To start with, it looks as if those two facts are explained by the different years to which the two sums apply, but that is not the case. The Secretary of State is indulging in double counting, because he is also increasing the ESG for the next financial year—the same year that is to be paid for from the extra money. Lunchtime money is either new and comes out of the £1.25 billion, or it is not and comes from LEA money via the ESG precept. I believe that the right hon. Gentleman is actually taking LEA money to pay for lunchtimes but he is telling us—and I refer to his written answer of 8 November—that payment for lunchtimes is coming from his new money.
We have an amending Bill that destroys the concept of the original Act. It is irrelevant to the main issue of low pay in the education service. It has been drawn up without consulting the teachers, and the heads have said that the

Government have seriously underestimated the sums needed, and it does not make any sense. For these reasons, my right hon. and hon. Friends and I will oppose the Bill.

Mr. J. F. Pawsey: I am disappointed but not surprised that both Opposition speakers could not find a single word of welcome for a measure that teachers have wanted for years. I welcome the Bill and believe that it takes from teachers a burden which they have grumbled about for years. Dinner duties have been as unwanted as they have been unpaid. For the first time, teachers will be able to have a lunch break away from school and pupils, and, like many other employees, they will be able to move away from their place of work and have a reasonable break. Those who wish to supervise—and I hope many will choose to do so—will henceforth be remunerated.
I strike a gentle note of caution, however. At a meeting of the National Association of Head Teachers yesterday concern was expressed about the mechanics of the payments that will be made to teachers for supervising dinner duties. It would seem that this requires some clarification. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Minister will mention that in his summing-up. It is important that we ensure considerable teacher participation in these duties.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has obtained £10 million for midday supervision for the balance of the year and £40 million for next, and his action should be applauded. I am disappointed that Opposition Members could find no word of commendation for an action that has been wanted for a long time. The funding comes from the £1.25 billion that is on offer to teachers. If nothing else, this measure proves the tangible existence of that money, a point that appears to be doubted by some members of the profession.
Parents will welcome the Bill. Children will not be sent home at midday because of inadequate or insufficient supervision and that will remove a major source of worry from parents, particularly now that winter is with us. Parents will be assured that children will not be locked out of schools during inclement weather. That has to be a substantial benefit. What is more, children will not be getting into mischief at lunchtimes. A further aspect that will commend itself to many hon. Members is that working mothers will not have to take time off from work and lose earnings to ensure that they will be available to look after their children should they be sent home from school.
When enacted, the Bill will enable local authorities to recruit staff, and that includes teachers. If local authorities do not and schools close, parents will know where the responsibility for that action lies. They will know exactly who to blame should that happen. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has ensured an important safeguard for children, and one that will certainly be appreciated by their parents.
If the dispute has to continue, the Bill will help to ensure that it does not bear so heavily on the children, particularly young children. It should be welcomed for that reason, if for no other, by both sides of the House. I have the utmost respect for the majority of teachers. I am aware that theirs is not the easiest of jobs. Teaching teenagers in some schools must be difficult, and in some cases it must be purgatory.

Mr. Greenway: Come off it.

Mr. Pawsey: My hon. Friend will have an opportunity to say his piece. Many teachers do a most worthwhile job, but it is not always the easiest of jobs. When he reflects on that, I am sure that my hon. Friend will not quarrel with it.
I am familiar with teachers' work. I was educated within the state system, as were my children, and I visit schools regularly, as I am sure do the majority of hon. Members. I am aware that a teacher's job is much more than long holidays and free periods. I am aware of the additional work that is done at home at nights and in teachers' free time. I also recognise the voluntary work they do in school societies. That knowledge adds to my welcome to the Bill. It enhances the professional part of a teacher's work and removes from teachers a disagreeable chore.
The Bill should be seen as an outrider to the best package ever offered to the teaching profession. That £1.25 billion is the largest sum ever obtained from the Treasury for the nation's teachers. It is £1.25 billion spread over four years and for teachers' pay, not buildings or books. It is on top of the increments that teachers may quite properly expect over those four years. It improves promotion prospects and helps to reduce the problems caused by falling rolls. I find it surprising that this measure is not more widely welcomed by Opposition Members and by members of the profession. Some uninformed comments about the Bill, which gives teachers what they have desired for years, seem to suggest that it is a cross between a Trojan horse and a poisoned chalice. It is neither; it is nothing of the sort.
For years teachers' unions have been concerned that their members have been asked to do voluntary duties supervising school dinners. The cry has been, "Either pay us or remove the duties." The unions have complained that this unpaid work was unconnected with a teacher's job. In short, it was unpopular, unwanted and unpaid. One would have thought that my right hon. Friend's decision to make available £10 million in this year and £40 million in the next four years would have been welcomed with paeans of praise, but, sadly, no such luck. The unions now appear to be complaining that the Bill knocks the knives and forks from their hands. They accuse my right hon. Friend of foul play because he is giving them what they have asked for for years. This Bill is a clear commitment to a hardworking profession.

Mr. Guy Barnett: I start by declaring an interest as a consultant to the National Union of Teachers. Having listened to the speech of the hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey), I am sure that many teachers in his constituency, and no doubt many others who read his words, will be pleased by the praise that he has heaped on the heads of teachers and on their dedication to their work. It was clear from what he said about visiting many schools that he enjoys close contact with the teaching profession in the state system, which is not true of all Conservative Members.
Given that the hon. Gentleman feels that way, he must be puzzled by the anger throughout the teaching profession about the Secretary of State and his behaviour towards it. He must ask himself, because he has such obvious respect for members of the profession, why there is such enormous anger. A month or two ago I went to a well-attended march

through the centre of London. It was full of dedicated teachers who felt deeply angry about the Secretary of State's actions.
It is not our job this evening to discuss the dispute. However, the Bill comes before the House with the background of the dispute behind it. There has been no consultation with the trade unions. One would have thought that it would be normal for the Government to consult trade unions on a matter of this kind. — [Interruption.] Consultation with the employers was also important but, because of the current dispute, consultation with the unions about the Bill was very important.
I agree with the hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth that dinner duties are very unpopular. They were very unpopular with me. It is extremely hard work. I knew that the quality of the lessons that I had to teach in the afternoon suffered because of the nervous energy that went into the supervision of not just midday school meals but the playground, too. The fact that there was no respite meant that one's performance as a teacher was not as good as it should have been.
In addition to causing nervous strain and being very tiring for a full-time teacher, midday supervision needs great skill. People need to be well qualified to carry out that duty. One of the National Union of Teachers' complaints about the sum of money that is to be made available for this purpose is that it is inadequate. Local education authorities will be unable to recruit and employ people who are competent to do this difficult job. I speak from first hand experience. The importance of this job should not be underestimated. If the Secretary of State genuinely wants to answer the demand of teachers that this job should be done by those who have no teaching responsibilities, it is important that it should be funded properly.
The action that the Secretary of State is taking is highly provocative. My hon. Friend the Member for Durham, North (Mr. Radice) made it clear that the Secretary of State could have spent this money upon many other things. The dispute is not just about pay or the treatment of individual teachers. The profession is genuinely concerned about the way in which the state education system is being treated by the Government. I do not need to go through the factors that are causing concern. Buildings and school books are just two examples of the way in which the education service is being starved of money.
We know why the Secretary of State is introducing this Bill as his top priority. He sees it as a weapon in the dispute, without answering the demands of teachers or recognising that the profession is dedicated to the needs of those whom it is its job to serve. When one hears the speeches of Conservative Members, one gets the impression that they feel that teachers must have a new contract of service because they are not doing enough. However, since I was a member of the teaching profession, teachers have voluntarily taken on more and more duties. That is the sign not of a profession that is trying to get rid of responsibilities but of a profession that is anxious to take them on.
The answer to the problem is not legislation of this kind, which is designed to weaken the hand of teachers in the current dispute. The answer to the settlement of the dispute lies with the Secretary of State. I receive many letters from parents in my constituency who demand that the Secretary of State should accept his responsibilities. They recognise that the Secretary of State must resolve this


dispute. The blame does not lie with the teachers, as is so often suggested by Conservative Members. That is the reason why the union is opposed to the Bill, why I shall be voting against it, and why I fully support the opposition of my hon. Friend the Member for Durham, North to the Bill.

Mr. Harry Greenway: All right hon. and hon. Members respect the professional experience of the hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Barnett). I, too, was a teacher for many years. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the afternoon performance of teachers suffers if they have to perform lunchtime duties. However, if children are not properly supervised at lunchtime, they are less receptive to education in the afternoon. It is a difficult question of swings and roundabouts. If I had to choose, on balance I would always prefer supervision, even if I had to carry it out myself.
When my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey) was speaking, I chiacked slightly when, as somebody who is not a member of the profession, he referred to teaching. He said that it must sometimes be purgatory to teach teenagers. Although it is very difficult to teach teenagers, I would ask my hon. Friend to think again about that.

Mr. Pawsey: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Greenway: May I just make my point? It is a difficult, challenging and demanding job, but to the dedicated teacher it is never purgatory.

Mr. Pawsey: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Greenway: Yes, but I have only two minutes.

Mr. Pawsey: All I want to say is that my hon. Friend has never sought to teach my sons.

Mr. Greenway: No. I am interested to hear that my hon. Friend, who is not a qualified teacher, may have found it difficult.

Mr. Pawsey: I have six sons.

Mr. Greenway: My hon. Friend may have found it difficult because he is not a qualified teacher. The £50 million that has been set aside for a full year needs to be re-examined. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister of State when he replies to the debate to reassure the House that this sum will be enough. Lunchtime supervision covers not only school meals, but the running of clubs and libraries. Playground supervision is enormously demanding. Supervision of that kind must also be provided and paid for.
Supervision is also needed in the area around schools. One cannot expect secondary schoolchildren to stay on the premises throughout the lunch break. When they leave school premises, difficult children might enter blocks of flats or other buildings and cause trouble. Consequently, suitable supervisors need to be in the area around schools so that they can deal with trouble if it should arise and get the children back on to the school premises. I wonder, therefore, whether £50 million will be sufficient. I wonder, too, whether this matter has been thought through in the way that I have described.
A substantial element of supervision by teachers at lunchtime is essential. Supervision of the kind that I have described can be managed if there is a strong teacher

element, or if it is managed entirely by teachers but it cannot be managed without any teacher help at all, even though head teachers and their deputies would, I know, do a noble job. Teacher supervision is required, because they alone have the expertise to handle children. They alone can provide the educational opportunities that ought to be available at lunch time in any school. Very few people who are not teachers would be able to provide the expertise and educational opportunities that ought to be available in a good school at lunch time.
In my school, 1,500 school meals were provided each day. This meant that at any one time there would be 500 or 600 children in the dining hall, either queueing for lunch or eating lunch. If suddenly a crisis or quarrel erupted, it required enormous expertise to sort it out and prevent its escalation. It will be difficult for people who are not well qualified to provide that necessary expertise. There is a complete mix of children of all levels of intelligence, from all sorts of social backgrounds and ethnic minorities, as well as from the indigenous community. They should he relaxed, but if there is trouble, as there certainly will be, notably on rainy and windy days, it takes some handling. I hope that the supervision will be adequate.
School dinners are good for children. It is a good time for extra education in social mores and extra learning in clubs and other areas. Often it is the only square meal a child has in a day, which should also be remembered. I disagree with some Opposition Members, notably the hon. Member for Cambridgeshire, North-East (Mr. Freud), who said that school meals were under serious attack. They have never been better As children have much more choice, there is much less waste. In the past I have seen buckets and lorry loads of good food taken from schools where it was thrown at children who did not want it.
The teachers' dispute undoubtedly influences the position. The teaching profession is the greatest profession of all, and it is what counts. To settle the dispute we may need to press hard for an inquiry, and the time has come to do so. The inquiry must not be into pay alone, because it will not settle the question for ever. It is essential to link conditions with pay. I hope that we shall have an inquiry before long and settle this miserable dispute.

Mr. Jack Dormand: It is unfortunate that we had three Government statements today which took up a large part of the time for debating this important measure, so I intend to be brief. I shall omit my words of support for the financial statistics which my hon. Friend the Member for Durham, North (Mr. Radice) presented lucidly and forthrightly. They are the main factors in the debate.
The first two Government Back-Bench Members to speak missed the point, but I am glad that the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway), who has much more practical experience, came to the nub of the matter, and I hope that the Minister will take note of what he said.
The Bill demonstrates yet again the Government's crazy sense of priorities in dealing with education problems The hon. Member for Cambridgeshire, North-East (Mr. Freud) dealt with that matter. The best that can be said about the Bill is that it is feeble and inadequate, and the worst is that it lacks understanding, and is malicious and, above all, provocative. For anyone who


has any interest in the importance of education it is inconceivable that these proposals should be introduced now, during the teachers' dispute.
Teachers have long pressed for a fully staffed ancillary service for lunchtime supervision. In 1968 the school meals agreement between the Government, local authorities and the teachers' unions recommended minimum levels of supervisory staff. In 1967 during the dispute about school meals supervision I was the education officer for Easington where the dispute was centred. I still have vivid memories of it. One is that the hon. and learned Member for Fylde (Sir E. Gardner) cross-examined me in the High Court. Although it was a hotly contested dispute which ended in a legal decision, I never had any doubt that a fully staffed ancillary service must be the objective.
Since then progress has been undermined by the Government, not least by today's measure. The goodwill and co-operation of teachers is continually demonstrated in many ways. It is proper, therefore, to recall that, despite the court's decision 17 years ago, a large number of teachers voluntarily supervised pupils at lunchtime. That is why I intervened when the Secretary of State kindly gave way while introducing the Bill. That is a measure of teachers' concern. It must never be forgotten that supervision is voluntary, and the withdrawal by teachers of that work during the present dispute is perfectly proper and, what is more, perfectly understandable.
Some innocents on the Conservative Benches—we have not heard any of them today—and, I was about to say, devious characters, but I shall absolve them of that accusation, will say, and have said, "Why are the teachers grumbling? We are proposing to provide the ancillary staff for which they are asking." The answer is that the £40 million allocated is completely inadequate for funding a fully staffed service. That was the burden of the argument of the hon. Member from Ealing, North. It shows that the Government are not taking the matter sufficiently seriously. Moreover—some of my hon. Friends may disagree with me on this—it will be no easy task to find staff of the right calibre. They will have to possess the right kind of personality, be sympathetic to and knowledgeable about children, and, above all—

Mr. Mark Fisher: Trained.

Mr. Dormand: I shall come to that point in a moment—have an authority which will make lunchtime the orderly, civilised and pleasant occasion that it should be. Such people are few and far between, as I know from the difficulties that I had in recruiting them many years ago.
To recruit such people will require adequate financing and training. If we do not face that fact, we shall not meet the desired objectives. Anything short of that will be self-defeating. It is essential that the scheme should include the training of supervisory personnel, which will also require money. It is obvious to everyone except the Government that, if lunchtime supervision by ancillary staff is to succeed, it must meet two criteria. First, there must be sufficient money for it, and, secondly, it must be separate from any moneys identified as being available for teachers' salaries. The proposals in the Bill do not meet those criteria. That is another sign of the Government's hasty and ill-considered attitude towards an important part of the education of our children.
When historians come to write the story of present-day Tory Governments, two words will be used more than any others—confrontation and provocation. We have a perfect example of those two attitudes in the Bill. The £10 million for this financial year and the £40 million for the next financial year are to be clawed back from the new money that the Secretary of State has made available for teachers' salaries between 1986 and 1990.
I have to tell the Secretary of State, as if he did not already know, that to take £50 million for the payment of meals supervisors will increase not just the anger but the determination of the teachers in the present dispute. Such provocation will do nothing to resolve the present salary dispute; it will exacerbate it. Not just teachers, but parents will see through the Government's transparently sham gesture.
I am one of those people who believe that few things in this life are of more importance than education. From my many years' experience, I know that, however good the facilities, the equipment and the buildings, the ultimate success rests with the teachers. The Government have consistently failed to recognise that, and they are compounding that with the Bill. If they insist on carrying it through, they will increase the antagonism of the teaching profession, it will create a distrust which will take years to eradicate and, perhaps more importantly, leave a mark on thousands of children in our schools. For the Government to indulge in what I can only describe as the sleight of hand shown in the Bill is not just a disgrace: it is a demonstration once again of the low priority that they place on education. I urge the Government to think again.

Mr. Derek Fatchett: I shall concentrate on two points because many of the other issues that I wished to mention have been discussed by my hon. Friends. The hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway) made a substantial point when he talked about an inquiry into the teachers' pay dispute. I am sure that that would receive a great deal of sympathy from my hon. Friends.
I share the views of my hon. Friend the Member for Durham, North (Mr. Radice) that the Bill shows where the Government's priorities lie. The National Confederation of Parent-Teachers Associations has just presented to us a damaging report on education in terms of classroom relationships and the fabric of education. If the Government have money to spend, it should be spent on dealing with some of the problems to which the report drew so much attention.
At best, the timing of the Bill is inept. The Government have not gone in for the necessary consultation with the teachers and the employers. My hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Dormand) said that when the Government's history comes to be written, terms such as "confrontation" and "provocation" will be used. One word that will never be used about the Government is "consultation".
The Government have introduced a measure that does not seem to give much thought to dealing with many of the detailed problems related to the midday supervision. It might be useful if the Government were to listen to the hon. Member for Ealing, North on this occasion. He talked about many of those problems. Who will train the supervisors? What will the relationship be between them


and the teachers? What will be the nature of the disciplinary relationship? None of those questions has been answered by the Secretary of State.
At worst, the Bill's timing is provocative because the Secretary of State is saying that this measure will weaken the bargaining position of the teachers' unions. That is the Bill's purpose. The parents have the right to ask the Secretary of State one simple question: what are the Government doing to protect our children's education? I speak as a parent who has suffered because his children cannot enjoy a regular education. I want to know what the Government will do to ensure that my children and many others will receive a regular education.
I shall remind the Secretary of State of the position in the city that we both have the pleasure to represent in the House of Commons. In Leeds, 21,000 pupil half-day sessions have been lost between September and mid-November. Not one child or school has not suffered from the dispute. What is the Secretary of State doing about that? The Bill will not resolve the problems. It will exacerbate them and make the difficulties that much greater.
On many occasions, the Secretary of State has claimed that he is the friend of parents and children. His action in introducing the Bill points to the opposite conclusion. The Government are not worried about parents or children. They merely want to use them as pawns in the teachers' dispute and in a confrontation with the teachers' unions. For those reasons, I shall vote against the Bill.

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: I am pleased to be taking part in the debate, but I am a little sad that I had to cancel a meeting with Tameside teachers to be here. They made it clear that they were happy to rearrange that meeting on the basis that I would strongly express their views to the Government. They feel bitter because the Government have done nothing to solve the dispute in the nine months that it has continued. The Secretary of State has made any resolution of the dispute more difficult by making frequent provocative statements.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Durham, North (Mr. Radice), I welcome the Minister of State to his new position. I hope that his appointment is not just cosmetic and a facelift, but that he will introduce a new policy and a new way of solving the dispute. If he manages that, I hope that he has the same success as the Secretary of State for the Environment who went in to bolster up the image of a Department and soon took it over.
Will the Minister explain why the Government are seeking to amend the Education (Grants and Awards) Act 1984 to bring in this proposal? It is muddling the legislation, and it is a parliamentary device to avoid scrutiny. The Government want Second Reading today. I gather that they want the Committee stage of the Bill to be taken on the Floor of the House. They want to rush the Bill through late at night in the week before Christmas.

Mr. Pawsey: The hon. Gentleman cannot call this late.

Mr. Bennett: Not now, but the hon. Gentleman should wait for Committee and Report.
It is unfortunate, because there are important issues to consider. We must consider how head teachers and their deputies will organise supervision at lunchtime. I hope that the Minister will tell us what will happen about choir

practices, preparing children for the Duke of Edinburgh's award, and all the other things that take place at lunchtime. Do they come down to teaching or supervision? The tragedy of the past nine months has not been that a little more custard has been spilt on the floor in the dining rooms or one or two more spoons have been twisted by the pupils; it is all the other lunchtime activities, which I regard not as supervision but as an essential part of education.
The activities that I have mentioned have disappeared. What will be the relationship between the sums of money provided for in the Bill and those activities? Will there be national pay rates and conditions of service for lunchtime supervision, or are the Government trying to pick off areas of high unemployment where people are desperate for jobs in the hope that those people will take the work at extremely low rates of pay?
What will happen in those areas where over recent years the lunchtime has been reduced? It has become almost a lunchtime gobble. The food is eaten, but little else happens. Many schools would be better with a much longer lunchtime. Will the legislation make it possible to bring back many of the things that went on during the lunchtime? When will the Minister stand up for education and obtain a little more public expenditure for it? Since 1979, as a proportion of GDP, spending on education has decreased each year. If we were spending now on education the same as we were in 1979 as a proportion of GDP, we should be spending about £2.2 billion extra. Such money would go a long way not just towards solving the dispute, but towards helping many other education issues.
I ask the Government to consider carefully how they should try to solve this dispute. Digging their heels in and insisting that they will not move from their position will not solve the problem.
This measure is an insult to teachers. The Government have totally destroyed the morale of teachers, and they now have a major task to rebuild that morale. The first thing they must do is to find a means of settling the dispute with honour and to the satisfaction of teachers. Until the Government do that, the Opposition will vote against miserable little measures like this Bill.

The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mr. Chris Patten): I shall on this occasion be mercifully brief. I remind the House that the main aim of this small but valuable Bill is to secure adequate and reliable supervision at midday in our schools and so safeguard the education of pupils. The Government hope, through the Bill and associated proposals, to bring art end to the disruption at midday that has plagued our schools in recent months.
In taking this action the Government are responding to an argument which has been put by teachers increasingly forcefully—except perhaps in recent days—for the best part of the past 40 years. I am therefore surprised that the Bill should be seen as being vindictive, and all the other words associated with "vindictive" in "Roget's Thesaurus".
I am also surprised that the Bill should be seen as an attack on allegedly helpless teachers. I do not deny that we are seeking to remove from the teachers a weapon which they have deliberately used during the dispute at virtually no cost to themselves. They have been able to use this weapon only because it is something which they now do


voluntarily. The hon. Member for Durham, North (Mr. Radice) made an important point, and the Government are responding to that and placing the teachers' right to a break at midday beyond debate.
The hon. Members for Greenwich (Mr. Barnett) and for Easington (Mr. Dormand) said that the Government's action was provocative. They did not mix their metaphors to the extent that my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey) did when he called the proposal a cross between a Trojan horse and a poisoned chalice. I was delighted with my hon. Friend's metaphor. Opposition Members have said that the teachers wish to continue doing the work voluntarily, so that they can stop doing it whenever they wish. That is an extraordinary proposition, and there is not much principle or professionalism about that. The Government cannot accept that argument, nor could any local education authority employer.
It is not sensible to suggest, as the hon. Member for Cambridgeshire, North-East (Mr. Freud) did, that the supervision can be carried out only by teachers. More than 80,000 people who are not teachers are already employed to assist in supervising children and many adults are responsible for the safety and welfare of children in other situations.
The hon. Member for Cambridgeshire, North-East claimed that the money in the proposals was not new money. I can put his mind at rest and say that it is new money, as it is additional to our existing plans for educational spending. As from next year it will be new money, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept that.
The hon. Gentleman also referred to the education support grant. I am afraid that, unusually, he was slightly selective in his quotation. One of the purposes of ESG when it was introduced was to help
LEAs to respond swiftly to new demands on the education service".—[Official Report, 14 November 1983; Vol. 48, c. 630.]
That is what the Secretary of State said on the Second Reading of the Education (Grants and Awards) Bill. The need to substitute for the help which teachers are no longer willing to give is a new demand to which local education authorities need to make a swift response.
I should like to echo the sentiments of my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth and commend the very hard work and sterling efforts of many head teachers over recent months which have helped to keep many schools open. I realise the strain that they have suffered and acknowledge that they have behaved with great commitment. The new arrangements should provide head teachers with sufficient assistance at midday to discharge this responsibility without undue fuss. In future they will have staff whose contractual duty is to supervise at midday. This should greatly ease their position, but they will naturally retain overall responsibility for the running of the school.
The head teachers have been offered the opportunity to comment on the draft of the circular that is in the Library. The Government intend to send that circular to all education authorities outlining the arrangements if the legislation is passed.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway) wondered whether £40 million would be

sufficient in the circumstances. Even if one compares that sum with what is spent at present, or with the proposals put forward following the Rossetti committee, to which the hon. Gentleman referred, the figure of £40 million seems adequate. The additions were arrived at after careful consideration of the number of extra supervisors who might be required in schools of different sizes and the likely range of costs implied. The £10 million to be made available for the remainder of this year and the £40 million for 1986–87 will suffice to allow adequate new arrangements to be introduced.
In response to the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett), I confirm that the arrangements will be worked out by local education authorities. If the Government had decided to introduce a national scheme, the hon. Gentleman would doubtless have criticised us for centralising the education service. The Government are proceeding in a very sensible way.
The main thrust of the argument from the Opposition, as recounted by the hon. Member for Durham, North, is that the Bill is the Government's only response to the distressing dispute which has done and is doing so much damage to the education service. That argument is a travesty of the truth. For over a year the Government have been pressing for a new deal for teachers based on higher pay in return for a definition of teachers' duties and a new salary structure. Negotiations have consistently been blocked by the leadership of one union, which talks grimly of keeping the disruption going until the next election. So much for professionalism.
Last August the Government put £1.25 billion on the table to facilitate a new deal. If that is inflexibility, all I can say is that that is the sort of inflexibility which most other professional groups and public sector pay workers would be very happy to endure.
The Government's offer to the unions in September, which unlocked the £1.25 billion of new additional money, was rightly described by one of the local authority employers—not a Conservative employer—as the most radical and imaginative ever for teachers. It was a deal which would have given teachers two increases this year and an average end-of-year increase of 8 per cent. That deal would have given two out of three teachers a very substantial amount of extra money indeed on top of their normal pay awards.
Even allowing for the margin of linguistic excess to which Oppositions are committed by ancient tradition—one could call that the Kaufman factor—to describe the offer made last August, in view of the way the National Union of Teachers has behaved, and the whole history of the dispute, as examples of a hardhearted Government acting inflexibly, is ludicrously intemperate and ludicrously wide of the mark.
We want to see the teachers get back to negotiation. We want to see an early end to this bitter, damaging and totally unnecessary dispute, on terms which are fair and honourable all round and on terms which will last and which will ensure that we do not go through all this again. I wish I were convinced that that was the view of the leadership of the National Union of Teachers. In the meantime, until we get such a settlement, we are acting in the Bill to remove a long-standing grievance. The Bill, therefore, like the Government's behaviour throughout the dispute, deserves the support of the House.

Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time:—

The House divided: Ayes 195, Noes 87.

Division No. 18]
[7 pm


AYES


Aitken, Jonathan
Howarth, Gerald (Cannock)


Alison, Rt Hon Michael
Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N)


Amess, David
Hubbard-Miles, Peter


Ancram, Michael
Hunt, David (Wirral)


Arnold, Tom
Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)


Ashby, David
Hunter, Andrew


Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Vall'y)
Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas


Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)
Jackson, Robert


Best, Keith
Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick


Bevan, David Gilroy
Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey


Biggs-Davison, Sir John
Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)


Body, Richard
Jones, Robert (Herts W)


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Jopling, Rt Hon Michael


Bottomley, Mrs Virginia
Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith


Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)
Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine


Brandon-Bravo, Martin
Key, Robert


Bright, Graham
Knight, Greg (Derby N)


Budgen, Nick
Knowles, Michael


Burt, Alistair
Knox, David


Carlisle, John (Luton N)
Lang, Ian


Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)
Latham, Michael


Cash, William
Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)


Chalker, Mrs Lynda
Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark


Chapman, Sydney
Lester, Jim


Chope, Christopher
Lightbown, David


Churchill, W. S.
Lilley, Peter


Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)
Lloyd, Peter, (Fareham)


Coombs, Simon
Lord, Michael


Cope, John
Luce, Richard


Cranborne, Viscount
Lyell, Nicholas


Critchley, Julian
McCrindle, Robert


Currie, Mrs Edwina
McCurley, Mrs Anna


Dickens, Geoffrey
Macfarlane, Neil


Dorrell, Stephen
MacGregor, Rt Hon John


Dover, Den
MacKay, Andrew (Berkshire)


du Cann, Rt Hon Sir Edward
MacKay, John (Argyll &amp; Bute)


Durant, Tony
Maclean, David John


Emery, Sir Peter
McNair-Wilson, M. (N'bury)


Eyre, Sir Reginald
Madel, David


Fairbairn, Nicholas
Major, John


Farr, Sir John
Malone, Gerald


Favell, Anthony
Maples, John


Fenner, Mrs Peggy
Marlow, Antony


Fookes, Miss Janet
Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin


Forman, Nigel
Meyer, Sir Anthony


Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)
Miller, Hal (B'grove)


Forth, Eric
Mills, Iain (Meriden)


Fox, Marcus
Moore, John


Franks, Cecil
Murphy, Christopher


Fraser, Peter (Angus East)
Neale, Gerrard


Freeman, Roger
Nelson, Anthony


Galley, Roy
Normanton, Tom


Gardiner, George (Reigate)
Norris, Steven


Gardner, Sir Edward (Fylde)
Onslow, Cranley


Garel-Jones, Tristan
Oppenheim, Phillip


Gow, Ian
Ottaway, Richard


Greenway, Harry
Parris, Matthew


Gregory, Conal
Patten, Christopher (Bath)


Griffiths, Peter (Portsm'th N)
Pawsey, James


Ground, Patrick
Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth


Hamilton, Hon A. (Epsom)
Percival, Rt Hon Sir Ian


Hampson, Dr Keith
Portillo, Michael


Hanley, Jeremy
Powell, William (Corby)


Haselhurst, Alan
Powley, John


Hawkins, C. (High Peak)
Price, Sir David


Hayward, Robert
Raffan, Keith


Heathcoat-Amory, David
Rhodes James, Robert


Heddle, John
Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)


Henderson, Barry
Robinson, Mark (N'port W)


Hickmet, Richard
Roe, Mrs Marion


Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.
Rossi, Sir Hugh


Hind, Kenneth
Rowe, Andrew


Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)
Sackville, Hon Thomas


Holland, Sir Philip (Gedling)
Sainsbury, Hon Timothy


Holt, Richard
Sayeed, Jonathan


Howarth, Alan (Stratfd-on-A)
Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)





Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')
Thorne, Neil (Ilford S)


Shelton, William (Streatham)
Thurnham, Peter


Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)
Twinn, Dr Ian


Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)
van Straubenzee, Sir W.


Shersby, Michael
Vaughan, Sir Gerard


Skeet, T. H. H.
Wakeham, Rt Hon John


Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)
Waldegrave, Hon William


Soames, Hon Nicholas
Wall, Sir Patrick


Speller, Tony
Waller, Gary


Spencer, Derek
Wardle, C. (Bexhill)


Stanbrook, Ivor
Watts, John


Stanley, John
Wells, Sir John (Maidstone)


Steen, Anthony
Whitney, Raymond


Stern, Michael
Wiggin, Jerry


Stevens, Lewis (Nuneaton)
Winterton, Mrs Ann


Stevens, Martin (Fulham)
Winterton, Nicholas


Stewart, Andrew (Sherwood)
Wolfson, Mark


Stradling Thomas, Sir John
Wood, Timothy


Sumberg, David
Young, Sir George (Acton)


Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)



Terlezki, Stefan
Tellers for the Ayes:


Thatcher, Rt Hon Mrs M.
Mr. Michael Neubert and


Thompson, Donald (Calder V)
Mr. Francis Maude


Thompson, Patrick (N'ich N)



NOES


Alton, David
Hughes, Dr. Mark (Durham)


Archer, Rt Hon Peter
Hughes, Roy (Newport East)


Ashdown, Paddy
Hughes, Sean (Knowsley S)


Ashley, Rt Hon Jack
Hughes, Simon (Southwark)


Atkinson, N. (Tottenham)
Kilroy-Silk, Robert


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Kirkwood, Archy


Barnett, Guy
Leighton, Ronald


Barron, Kevin
Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)


Beckett, Mrs Margaret
McCartney, Hugh


Bennett, A. (Dent'n &amp; Red'sh)
McKay, Allen (Penistone)


Bermingham, Gerald
McKelvey, William


Bray, Dr Jeremy
McNamara, Kevin


Bruce, Malcolm
Marek, Dr John


Callaghan, Jim (Heyw'd &amp; M)
Marshall, David (Shettleston)


Carlile, Alexander (Montg'y)
Meacher, Michael


Clwyd, Mrs Ann
Michie, William


Cocks, Rt Hon M. (Bristol S.)
Millan, Rt Hon Bruce


Cohen, Harry
Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)


Cook, Frank (Stockton North)
Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)


Corbett, Robin
O'Brien, William


Cox, Thomas (Tooting)
Park, George


Crowther, Stan
Pike, Peter


Davies, Ronald (Caerphilly)
Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)


Davis, Terry (B'ham, H'ge H'l)
Radice, Giles


Deakins, Eric
Randall, Stuart


Dormand, Jack
Redmond, M.


Dunwoody, Hon Mrs G.
Rees, Rt Hon M. (Leeds S)


Eastham, Ken
Richardson, Ms Jo


Fatchett, Derek
Roberts, Ernest (Hackney N)


Fields, T. (L'pool Broad Gn)
Rogers, Allan


Flannery, Martin
Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)


Foot, Rt Hon Michael
Sheerman, Barry


Foster, Derek
Shore, Rt Hon Peter


Foulkes, George
Short, Mrs R.(Whampt'n NE)


Fraser, J. (Norwood)
Skinner, Dennis


Freeson, Rt Hon Reginald
Soley, Clive


Freud, Clement
Spearing, Nigel


George, Bruce
Tinn, James


Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John
Wallace, James


Hamilton, W. W. (Fife Central)
Welsh, Michael


Harrison, Rt Hon Walter
Williams, Rt Hon A.


Heffer, Eric S.
Winnick, David


Hogg, N. (C'nauld &amp; Kilsyth)



Holland, Stuart (Vauxhall)
Tellers for the Noes:


Home Robertson, John
Mr. Frank Haynes and


Howells, Geraint
Mr. Mark Fisher.

Questions accordingly agreed to.

Bill read a Second time.

Bill Committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. Lang.]

Committee tomorrow.

EDUCATION (AMENDMENT) BILL [MONEY]

Queen's recommendation having been signified—

Resolved,
That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Education (Amendment) Bill, it is expedient to authorise any increase in payments out of money provided by Parliament resulting from substituting '1 per cent.' for '0.5 per cent.' in section 2(1) of the Education (Grants and Awards) Act 1984.—[Mr. Lang.]

Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Giles Shaw): I beg to move,
That the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (Codes of Practice) (No. 1) Order 1985, dated 24th October 1985, a copy of which was laid before this House on 30th October, in the last Session of Parliament, be approved.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is required by section 66 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act to issue codes of practice governing the exercise by the police of their powers of stop and search, the search of premises and the seizure of property, and the detention, treatment, questioning and identification of persons by the police. Section 67 requires him to lay these orders before Parliament for its approval, and to bring them into operation by statutory instrument.
The codes before the House tonight have gone through a long period of gestation and consultation. The first drafts of some of them appeared as long ago as 1982, and they have been subject to substantial discussion and amendment, first during the passage of the Police and Criminal Evidence Bill, which fell with the election of June 1983, and then during that of its successor, which entered the statute book a year ago.
The official "consultative" text of the four codes was published in January this year, since when we have received comments from a wide range of groups and organisations, including those representing the police service, the legal profession, civil liberties interests, and particular community groups. We have sought to take careful account of those views in preparing a final draft of the codes, which were laid before Parliament on 23 October. Inevitably comments from different groups were occasionally in conflict with one another, but our objective has been to reconcile those different approaches as far as possible. The approach that we have adopted has been that of the Act itself—to present a balanced package which gives the police the powers that they need in dealing with crime, but which also provides workable and effective safeguards for the citizen who comes into contact with the police.
It is the Government's intention to bring the remaining provisions of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act into force on 1 January 1986. They deal with police powers and procedures and with rules of criminal evidence. If Parliament approves the codes of practice, they too will come into effect on 1 January. We are coming to the end of the long process of reforming the law on police powers, which began with the establishment of the Royal Commission on criminal procedure in 1978, and there can be no doubt about the importance of what has been achieved. Taken together, the Act and the codes represent a major change in a vital area of national life—the way in which our society is policed.
It might help to remind the House that it was concerns at the inadequacy of police powers, combined with concerns at the inadequacy of controls over police powers, which led to the establishment of the Royal Commission. One of the major events triggering public disquiet at police methods of questioning suspects was of course the Confait case. In 1975 three young men who had earlier been convicted of grave offences, including murder, man-slaughter and arson, had their convictions quashed by the


Court of Appeal because it formed the view that the police investigation had not been conducted satisfactorily and that the suspects' confessions were unreliable.
Sir Henry Fisher's inquiry into the case pointed to a number of weaknesses in the way in which the police had kept records of their investigation and had interviewed and obtained confessions from the suspects. The Fisher report concluded that no police officer had deliberately falsified the record. The police had tried to record as accurately as possible their questions and the answers given by the suspects. But established procedures had not been followed in a number of important respects—in particular, the provisions of the judges rules and Home Office administrative directions to the police requiring juveniles to be interviewed in the presence of a parent or guardian, that leading questions should not be asked when a suspect makes a statement, and that suspects be informed of the rights and facilities available to them to get in touch with a solicitor or their friends.

Mr. Gerald Bermingham (St. Helens, South): What steps does the Minister propose to take to enforce the codes of practice, because in recent experimental operations in the metropolitan area they seem to have been breached more often that kept?

Mr. Shaw: I fully understand that the hon. Gentleman is referring to events in the metropolitan area. He will be aware that the codes of practice are not yet in force, but when they are he should rest assured that in certain criminal evidence cases, for example, if they are to be produced in evidence, they will play their part as a full legal document. The codes of practice will become part of the police code, and thus any officer who fails to observe them will be liable to the disciplinary procedure.
The Royal Commission on criminal procedure was set up in the aftermath of the Fisher report by the then Labour Government, under the chairmanship of Sir Cyril Philips. It was charged with the duty of considering whether changes were needed in the powers and duties of the police in investigating criminal offences, and the rights and duties of suspect and accused persons. It was also asked to review the prosecution system and any relevant features of criminal procedure. The Royal Commission reported in 1981 after carrying out a most thorough and helpful review of the criminal process. It presented a devastating analysis of the inconsistencies and inadequacies of the present law, which has grown up piecemeal to meet the need of particular circumstances or particular parts of the country. The commission highlighted clearly the uncertainties about the boundaries of police powers, which are neither good for the professionalism of the police, nor conducive to a climate of public confidence. To meet those defects in the present system, the Royal Commission proposed a series of major reforms. I need not remind the House that the Government's response reached the statute book after unprecedentedly detailed parliamentary consideration.
The process inherent in the Act—of identifying the powers that the police need in combating crime on our behalf, of spelling out those powers in terms that police and public alike can understand and operate, and of setting alongside powers the safeguards necessary to demonstrate that they will be used responsibly and only where appropriate—has underlaid the preparation of the codes also. The notion of codes of practice comes from the Royal Commission, which argued that the vagueness of the

judges rules needed to be replaced with explicit and workable instructions, subject to parliamentary approval, but capable of amendment and variation as experience or changing circumstances require. We have sought to frame the codes in language easily understandable to police and public alike, but the fact that the codes are not drafted in parliamentary language in no way lessens their significance.
The provisions of the codes are binding on police officers in the all-important sense that breach of a provision renders the officer concerned liable to disciplinary proceedings, and that the codes are admissible, as I mentioned in response to the hon. Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham), in evidence in criminal and disciplinary proceedings. There should be no doubt in anyone's mind that the codes mean business and will have a real effect on the way in which the police conduct investigations.
Let me now describe the codes of practice. The code of practice for the exercise by police officers of statutory powers of stop and search applies both to existing police powers of stop and search and to the new power provided by the 1984 Act. It sets out the standard to be satisfied before the necessary reasonable grounds for suspicion may be said to exist to justify the use of the search power. It provides for how searches are to be conducted and it lays down the action to be taken after a search is carried out.
There is a careful balance to be struck here. The Government believe—in common with the Royal Commission—that stop and search powers are an important tool for the police in the detection of crime and the prevention of further offences. It will also be invaluable for the police to have a general power, short of arrest, for dealing with those they suspect of the carriage of stolen goods or offensive weapons: rather than arresting the suspect, as they would be empowered to do, the police will be able to confirm or deny their original suspicion by a quick search. That will be in everyone's interest.

Mr. Clive Soley: In coming to that conclusion, did the Minister take into account evidence from the Policy Studies Institute report on the Metropolitan police, the Merseyside crime study and the British crime survey, all of which suggested that stop and search was not an effective way of arresting and convicting people?

Mr. Shaw: I am aware of the hon. Gentleman's interest in that matter; he has asked me several questions on it. We had some information about how such matters were handled by various police forces but, as is obvious to the House, we have concluded that stop and search will still provide an important power for detaining suspects and ultimately bringing people before the courts. I accept that there have been variable experiences, to which the hon. Gentleman has drawn attention.

Mr. Bermingham: Does the Minister agree that paragraph 2.2 about stop and search omits the racist important point—that the person who is stopped to be searched is not reminded of his right to silence?

Mr. Shaw: I was coming to that. I think that what I shall say will answer the hon. Gentleman's point.
The Government fully recognise the sensitivities involved in the use of such powers. Used inappropriately, or without a proper attempt to minimise the embarrassment


inevitably associated with being searched in public, the power can damage police relations with the community, and lead to tensions with particular groups. Thus the 1984 Act itself provides certain safeguards designed to ensure that such powers are used accountably and only in the circumstances intended by Parliament; the code takes that process forward by spelling out in more detail what police officers are empowered to do and how they should go about the task. The code, I believe, will enable police officers to make full use of that important power, without any of the adverse effects that critics have predicted, although I accept the point made by the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley) about variable experiences.
The second code deals with the searching of premises and the seizure of property by the police. The Royal Commission referred to that as
the power of the police to intrude on to private premises in order to enforce the law and to investigate crime".
The need for caution in that area is obvious. There can be few experiences more distressing than for one's home to be entered and searched, and that too is one of the sensitive areas of police powers, where the greatest care is needed if police relationships with the public are not to be endangered. But a proper power for the police to search premises in the investigation and detection of crime is equally essential. We cannot permit crime to be safely carried out in the security of private homes, or evidence of crime hidden there, because the police do not have proper powers to enter and search and seize illegally possessed property or evidence.
Existing police powers relate to a haphazard selection of offences and leave some curious gaps. For example, there is no power to enter and search the scene of a murder or kidnap, and most powers relate to items in unlawful possession, rather than to evidence of offences or offenders. The new powers in part II of the Act are an attempt to remedy that while establishing a general procedure governing all warrant applications by constables. As with that on stop and search, this code of practice takes forward the Act's provisions by providing detailed instructions for the police on applying for search warrants and production orders, and also for searching premises with the consent of the occupier.

Mr. Norman Atkinson: The Minister rightly emphasised the necessity for all police officers to be concerned about their relationship with the public, but nowhere does the code set out a method by which such operations should be carried out. For instance, it does not refer to police officers going to the wrong address, which often happens in London. There is never an apology forthcoming from the police for having made a mistake. When they enter premises, pieces of personal property are often slung or thrown from drawers on to the floor. The police go through the premises as if there were a burglary. No remedy for that behaviour is suggested. As with stop and search, it is a matter of opinion. The Minister says that the behaviour of the police is subject to disciplinary measures, but discipline depends upon opinion. That is not good enough.

Mr. Shaw: I take the hon. Gentleman's point. However, he will see that on page 30 of code B, paragraph 5C of the notes for guidance says:

If the wrong premises are searched by mistake, everything possible should be done at the earliest opportunity to allay any sense of grievance. In appropriate cases assistance should be given to obtain compensation.
Therefore, there is a reference in the code to the points raised by the hon. Gentleman. Guidance has to be issued on interpretation. A guidance note will be issued to all police officers by a Home Office circular, which lends further weight to how the codes should operate.
Recent tragic events have demonstrated vividly the need for sensitivity in this area. The power to enter and search premises is essential to the police in the investigation of crime, but its exercise must be carefully controlled. Innocent people must not suffer as a consequence and every precaution must be taken by the police to ensure that it does not lead to unforeseen results. The terrible outcome of the searches in Brixton and Tottenham must and will keep that danger at the forefront of our minds. As the House knows, those events are still the subject of investigation by the Police Complaints Authority and we do not yet know the outcome or what steps the Government can take to ensure that they do not happen again. But it is—and it has always been—the Government's objective to provide proper safeguards on the exercise of police powers, and I can assure the House that the Government will look closely at the authority's findings to see whether they show a need to make additional provisions in the codes. If they do, we shall not hesitate to bring fresh proposals to Parliament.

Mr. Alex Carlile: What the Minister said about ensuring that the police behave properly in accordance with the codes at the time of carrying out a search is entirely laudable, but, at the same time as issuing new circulars to police officers, will the Home Office ensure that it is drawn to the attention of magistrates that if they act simply as a rubber stamp when search warrants are applied for they are not doing their job? I am afraid that it is a fact, as I think the Minister knows, that some—no doubt a minority—magistrates are all too prepared to grant almost anything if the police apply for it.

Mr. Shaw: I appreciate the hon. and learned Gentleman's point. I have little doubt that when all the reports are in about the events that led to the incidents with which the House is so familiar, many lessons will be drawn from them, and that might be one.

Mr. Kenneth Hind: In the light of what my hon. Friend said about the incidents in Tottenham and Brixton, when police officers were armed when they entered the premises, would he think it appropriate, when a revision of the code of practice is considered, to insert a paragraph stating that armed police officers should say on entering the premises that they are armed, to avoid incidents such as the one in Brixton, which had such devastating consequences?

Mr. Shaw: That pre-empts the point that I was intending to make later. It is likely that the Police Complaints Authority, in its consideration of investigations into the incident involving the tragic shooting of Mrs. Groce, will make recommendations on firearms practice. I shall await the recommendations of that report before taking the matter further, but I appreciate the issue which my hon. Friend has raised.

Mr. Harry Cohen: The recent cases to which the Minister has referred involve serious matters. In one


recent case it is reported that the police took a young lad into custody and then used his keys to gain access to his parents' property. He was not under arrest at that stage. I accept that the Police Complaints Authority is investigating the case, but I ask the Minister to consider whether the guidance notes need revision to take into account the use of an individual's keys.

Mr. Shaw: I cannot speculate on the appropriate action to take in the light of the detailed report and the investigation of the incident which the hon. Gentleman has described. The hon. Gentleman will know that detailed reports are being made and are being carefully considered where necessary by the Director of Public Prosecutions as well as the Police Complaints Authority. No doubt we shall have the opportunity to discuss what these reports teach us about police practice and behaviour. All such reports will be considered and, if necessary, amendments will be made to the codes now before the House.
The present draft of the codes, even in relation to these problems and to searching, is as far as we can go at the present. Implementation will lead to major improvements.
After implementation, the police will be under a statutory duty to observe the codes' provisions, and failure to do so will be a disciplinary offence. This is no empty sanction and the police have not been slow to enforce their discipline. For example, in 1984, the last year for which we have full figures, 79 officers were dismissed or obliged to resign, 21 resigned after disciplinary charges had been preferred, 61 resigned while under investigation and 29 were reduced in rank. This was as a result of public complaints or internal disciplinary reviews. The House will be aware that part IX of the Act, which deals with complaints and discipline, has been in force since 29 April. This has established an independent system for investigating complaints against the police, and I am satisfied that it will provide an effective means of ensuring that the provisions of the codes are properly observed.
The code of practice for the detention, treatment and questioning of persons by police officers is the longest of the codes and represents a major landmark. It is designed to underpin the statutory provisions of the 1984 Act dealing with the rights of suspects who are detained and questioned by the police by setting out very detailed provisions governing the way in which suspects may be treated. The code replaces the judges rules, and the Lord Chief Justice has agreed that the latter should be withdrawn when the code comes into effect. The code reflects the traditional safeguards of our criminal justice system. Any person who attends voluntarily at a police station has the right to leave when he wishes, and any person who is at a police station under arrest has the right to have someone informed of his whereabouts, and the right to consult a solicitor.

Mr. Bermingham: Does the Minister agree that there is a gaping hole in the codes for those who attend police stations voluntarily? On page 38, guidance note 1A refers to the person who attends voluntarily and who should receive the same consideration. However, these rights cannot be enforced. Nobody can enforce these rights on behalf of the voluntary attender. It would be a good idea to have the code redrafted now to give the custody officer the duty of enforcing the rights of a person who attends voluntarily.

Mr. Shaw: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the code of practice will become a disciplinary matter for police officers in certain circumstances. Those who have the duty, as the custody officer has, to implement the provisions of the Act and the codes in relation to the treatment of those detained will have to carry out the provisions or face disciplinary charges. I accept that this is not a law relating to third parties. It is a description of how the police are to operate their powers of duty under the Act. It is a substantial improvement, but if it is not seen to be adequate, we shall carry out a review. I shall think about the issue that the hon. Gentleman has raised. If during the debate he is fortunate enough to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, he will be able to elaborate on the point.
The Act has provided for circumstances where the police may delay the exercise of these rights, and the code may reflect this, but the principle is unimpaired. The exercise of rights may be delayed but not prevented. I refer to the right to have someone informed of a person's whereabouts and the right to consult a solicitor. The code requires the police to detain suspects in decent conditions and to provide for their normal needs, including the attention of a doctor, should this be necessary. The requirement on the police to caution suspects before questioning them in the code—I trust the hon. Gentleman will recognise this—preserves the right to silence.
I spoke earlier of the Fisher report and the comments it made about the questioning of suspects to obtain evidence. It was especially concerned about the position of people who might be at particular risk because of their youth, mental illness or handicap, inability to understand English, or other disability. The code of practice places on the police a special duty when questioning such people. It requires the presence of a responsible adult who can look after the suspect's interests in any case where the suspect is young, mentally ill or handicapped, or where he may be unable for any other reason to understand the significance of questions put to him or his replies. This includes deaf people who may be unable to communicate by lip reading or writing. Some right hon. Members have recently expressed concern about the effectiveness of the safeguards for deaf people and I have met representatives of the British Deaf Association to discuss these fears. I must make it clear that the Government are concerned to ensure that no group in society is exposed to risk and that all receive adequate safeguards for their rights. The safeguards which exist at present appear to work satisfactorily—no complaints have been made which relate to the exercise of police powers in dealing with suspects who are deaf, and the Government are not aware of any difficulties which have arisen. I am prepared to provide further clarification or guidance in the Home Office circular to the police in respect of these individuals.
I have recently written to the right hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris) outlining the proposals that I would make. I understand that the proposals may have the support of the right hon. Gentleman, but no doubt the hon. Member for Hammersmith will refer to this.
The right to have an interpreter is given to those who have difficulty in understanding English, and I am taking steps to have the notice of rights, which the police are required to give to all detainees, translated into the languages of the immigrant communities.

Mr. Alex Carlile: Will the Minister guarantee that similar rights will be given to Welsh-speaking people?

Mr. Shaw: I think that I shall have to say yes, because in the areas where police notices are usually displayed in Welsh they will have this notice displayed in that language. I do not know whether that is the answer which the hon. and learned Gentleman expected me to give.
A most important right of the suspect is the freedom to consult a solicitor. The statutory basis for this is in section 58 of the Act, and the code sets out how this right may be given practical effect. Section 59 provides for the creation of a 24-hour duty solicitor scheme. The purpose is to ensure that legal advice is available outside normal working hours so that the right to consult a lawyer is not made meaningless for those who are detained at night or during weekends. The House will be aware of the Government's commitment to the establishment of this scheme from 1 January when these provisions come into effect.
My right hon. and noble Friend the Lord Chancellor announced the details of the scheme last July in another place. The House will be aware that the scheme entails a distinction being made between those being interviewed in connection with the more serious offences, which the Act defines as "arrestable" offences, where there will be no fixed limit on the amount of advice which may be given, and non-arrestable offences, where there will be a maximum. I am aware of the concern that has been expressed in some quarters, but I am sure that it is not justified. We have sought to ensure that proper provision is made for all suspects who wish to consult a lawyer at a police station.
I am aware of the concern that has been expressed in some quarters at the restriction that is represented by the £50 limit on advice that is given where suspects are detained in connection with non-arrestable offences. A limit of some form was unavoidable because the Government could not accept an open-ended public expenditure commitment. However, the figure chosen in the lower-tier cases reflects the cost of providing advice in the majority of such cases in the pilot studies which have been carried out.

Mr. Greg Knight: There is a potential problem with the £50 scheme. As I understand it, travelling time and travelling expenses are included in the £50. If a solicitor has to travel for 30 or 40 minutes to reach the police station, that will reduce the amount of advice that he can give on his arrival. Surely that is wrong. I hope that my hon. Friend will agree to reconsider the inclusion of travelling time and expenses within the £50 scheme.

Mr. Shaw: I am not sure that my hon. Friend is correct. It is my understanding that the provisions include payment for solicitors on the basis of £30 standby payment, £36 per hour for work done during out-of-office hours in dealing with arrestable offences and £27 per hour if the work relates to non-arrestable offences, which is a category within the £50 limit. Payment will be made for travelling time, time spent waiting and travelling expenses. Solicitors will be paid £10 for each telephone call in which legal advice is given. I put it to my hon. Friend that that is not an unreasonable offer. I trust that the House will agree that the provisions are fair and reasonable.

Mr. Christopher Chope: Is my hon. Friend aware that concern has been expressed that the

duty of the solicitor will not extend to the relatives of detainees? At present, many relatives of detainees telephone duty solicitors to seek advice, which is understandable. In future, solicitors will not be able to obtain payment by the state for duties that they have undertaken in giving advice to relatives who are understandably concerned about those who are being held in custody.

Mr. Shaw: I understand my hon. Friend's point. He is talking about a third party being informed of the whereabouts and the condition, for example, of the individual who is detained. The Act, the code and the provisions that we are discussing deal with the conduct of police officers towards those who are detained in police stations. Third parties do not come within these provisons, but I note my hon. Friend's point. He will be aware that the duty of the custody officer will take account of the need to contact third parties if that is requested. Recovery of their costs does not come within the ambit of the duty solicitor scheme.
The final code deals with the identification of persons by police officers. It sets out procedures for holding identity parades and group identifications, for confrontation by witnesses, street identification, the use of photographs, fingerprints and body samples. The code deals with the circumstances in which force may be used to take fingerprints, and in which fingerprints, photographs and body samples must be destroyed. Identification evidence is often a vital tool in the investigation of offences and it is vital that it should be accurate and obtained in circumstances that leave no grounds for allegations that it is misleading or unfair.
The Government's aim in preparing these codes has been to ensure that they represent good professional standards of policing. We recognise that they have involved the police in a major training exercise, which is now nearing completion. This has itself produced benefits for them in giving them an opportunity to review the operation of their service, and in future it will greatly simplify the training of new recruits. I fully understand the anxiety many police officers feel at the introduction of these new procedures. Change on this scale is bound to be an unsettling experience. However, a number of forces have been operating the provisions of the Act and the codes which do not require legislation for some little time, and the message that is emerging clearly is that it is not as difficult to do as they feared it might be. Once they have become familiar with the new procedures, police officers in these forces have found that initial difficulties are resolved and they are able to implement the Act effectively. A good example of this is in Reading, where the town's police have been operating a trial run now for about a year. Their experience has been successful, and they are by no means alone.
The codes of practice should be seen as what their name suggests. They must reflect what is practicable. They are not engraved in stone for all time. They are subject to the statutory instrument procedure and are not part of the Act itself so that they can be set out in workmanlike language, rather than the formality of statute. I would not discount the need, in due course, as I hinted earlier, to add to the codes or to amend them in the light of experience and to meet new situations which may arise. The House can be


assured that my Department will keep their operation under close review and that we shall be ready to propose any changes that we are satisfied are necessary.

Mr. Clive Soley: I thank the Minister for the generous way in which he has used his time and for answering some difficult questions. We appreciate that.
The aim of the four codes is to provide clear and workable guidelines for the police as well as to strengthen safeguards for the individual. That is a worthy intention, but one that the Government have not lived up to as well as they could. That is why the Opposition are concerned about the codes. I am not convinced that they are as clear as they could be or as workable as they should be. I am certainly not convinced that they include the necessary safeguards. As the Government's law-and-order policies get into more and more difficulty and produce devastating effects on the people who live with the consequences of crime and inner city disturbances, the last thing that is wanted is guidance that is not as effective as it should be.
The Government have managed to cause concern among members of the public generally as well as among the police and lawyers. I shall take up some of those concerns in my remarks, but, first, I wish to thank the Minister for agreeing to a request from my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris) concerning representations made by the British Deaf Association. My right hon. Friend asked me to convey to the Minister that he wished to be in his place tonight to mention that himself. Instead, he is with Mr. Speaker this evening. I have read the letter that has been drafted in response to my right hon. Friend's request, and it is clearly a helpful response from the Minister.
The Minister has said that the contents of the letter will be issued as further guidance to the police. I am not sure whether he intends at some time to incorporate them into the relevant code. I am concerned about having a code which contains footnotes that are not part of it and, in addition, having circulars sent round to police stations as additions. The Minister used the word "circulars". It seems that we shall have three levels of information in the codes.

Mr. Giles Shaw: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the way in which he has responded on behalf of his right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris). The information contained in Home Office circulars is the way in which we normally give guidance to each and every police officer on how he should early out his duty under statutory provision, such as the Act, or the codes. It seems that that is the quickest and most flexible way of making officers aware of the issues raised by the British Deaf Association. I take on board the point that if in due course the codes are to be revised, we can consider bringing within them the kind of points that have been made.

Mr. Soley: I am grateful for that explanation. The Minister will understand the concern. A note can be sent round to police stations which, although it has some impact when it first arrives, can quite quickly get lost in the papers. In the long run we must look at the codes themselves.
That is linked to some concern that we have as a result of the Confait case, to which the Minister referred. I am

anxious that the subnormal and mentally ill should have their rights explained to them, either by having a solicitor or a friend present or by being given a clear and straightforward oral explanation. We shall be examining the way in which the codes of practice are carried out with some considerable concern in view of the special circumstances of the Confait case. I shall have a little more to say about representation in a case like that where an unarrestable offence can become an arrestable one.
As the codes supersede the judges rules, they need to be clear and workable. In my view, the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 increases considerably the bureaucratic load on the police without necessarily improving the civil rights of the person brought into the police station. In that way, I think that the Act gives us the worst of both possible worlds.
I welcome the statement that the code of practice must be made readily available at all police stations for the police, public and detained persons. Lay members of groups, such as Lambeth police consultative committee which had a considerable input in this regard, should make sure that the codes are easily available to any member of the public and any detained person who wishes to see them.
I return to the guidance notes, which are not part of the provisions of the code. Note 1A on page 13 says:
It is important to ensure that powers of stop and search are used responsibly and sparingly and only where reasonable grounds for suspicion genuinely exist. Overuse of the powers is as likely to be harmful to police effort in the long term as misuse; both can lead to mistrust of the police among sections of the community. It is also particularly important to ensure that any person searched is treated courteously and considerately if police action is not to be resented.
I come back to my intervention in the Minister's speech. We know that the Merseyside study showed that, out of 1,000 stop and searches, only 43 resulted in arrest. There are other figures from a number of studies round the country which show a very low level of arrest and, I guess, a lower level of convictions resulting from stop and search. We must, therefore, be very concerned about the effect on police and public relations.
Considering the events immediately preceding the troubles at the Broadwater Farm estate, we note that there were a very large number of stop and searches prior to the outbreak of that trouble. We cannot assume that there was no connection between the breakdown in confidence in the police by people in that area and those actions by the police. This is an important point to which we should all pay great attention.

Mr. Greg Knight: I have been listening to the hon. Gentleman carefully. Surely the notes for guidance, as he has quoted them, will help to prevent the recurrence of instances which he has given. Paragraph 1.2, in effect, says that the notes for guidance, although they are not part of the code, are there for the guidance of police officers and others about its application and interpretation. If in any ensuing court case there was an argument about whether the police were applying the code properly, lawyers would certainly refer to the notes for guidance, although it is accepted that they are not part of the code.

Mr. Soley: The hon. Gentleman's final words point to the problem. Many people are saying that in particular this note for guidance should be part of the code for precisely that reason. There is the lessening of civil rights in terms of the code and of the Act, whereas at the other end of the


scale there has been no lessening of the powers to detain and so on. That is what we mean when we say that the balance is not as it should be and, indeed, as recommended by many other groups as well as by my right hon. and hon. Friends and myself.
At one of the police conferences on the Police and Criminal Evidence Act earlier this year, one senior officer remarked:
for instance, officers are required to give reasons for stopping people. But after a while, cases in court will establish acceptable phrases. And those reasons for stopping someone which are accepted in court will become the standard response.
Clearly there is an element of truth in that, but there are also dangers in it.
The percentage of stop and search leading to prosecutions, according to Home Office research, could have been as low as 4 per cent. in London and 1 per cent. elsewhere. It said:
Black males aged 16–24 were likely to be stopped particularly frequently, it found.
The report concluded:
Without a secure base of community support, the use of powers of this kind, however extensive or circumscribed, rapidly becomes hazardous and ineffective.
That must be of considerable concern to us. Where the codes have been implemented on an experimental basis in the London area, as I have indicated to the hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. Knight), we have seen that under pressure the safeguards go but the powers stay. If that continues when the Act comes into force on 1 January, the only thing that one can predict with any degree of certainty is that in certain key areas of our inner cities the relationship between the police and public will continue to decline, with all that that implies for the welfare of the community as a whole.
If I may take this a little further, the Minister will know that I tabled a series of written questions recently on the operation of the codes where they were being applied on an experimental basis. I asked how many people had been detained and how long it was before they were allowed to see a solicitor. The Minister replied:
The information requested is not held centrally. On the basis of the information which is currently available, and whose accuracy cannot be completely guaranteed, we believe that six people were denied access to a solicitor for less than 24 hours, 14 for between 24 and 48 hours, and five for more than 48 hours. Access was denied because, in the opinion of the police, granting it would have caused unreasonable delay or hindrance to the conduct of the investigation. No further information is available."—[Official Report, 2 December 1985; Vol. 88, c. 25.]
I am concerned that, unless the Minister is able to give us much tighter information on or after 1 January 1986, all the good intentions that he outlined in his speech about ensuring that the codes are examined as to the effectiveness with which they are carried out will come to nothing. Indeed, in reply to another written question, he said that the information was not available. It will be totally unacceptable to receive answers like that after 1 January because the Minister will not be able to carry out the commitment that he gave to the House to review the way that the code is working. We must have that information made available to us.
I turn next to some comments made by solicitors and lawyers who had some experience of the operation of the code during the troubles in Tottenham. I wish to make it clear that I refer to solicitors and lawyers who had

particular experience at that time. I want also to put on record that not only the people and residents of Broadwater Farm but the police were in something of a state of shock that night. That needs to be registered.
I have been told by solicitors that adults and juveniles alike have been held for long periods without seeing a solicitor. One 20-year-old was arrested on suspicion of having a forged tax disc. His mother and his solicitor were not allowed to see him throughout the 24 hours for which he was held. That was in direct contravention of section 58 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984.
In another example, a 13-year-old boy was held for 55 hours, during which time a solicitor instructed by his mother was not allowed to see him. The solicitor reminded the police of the suspect's unqualified right to seek advice after 36 hours' detention. He was told that he was wasting his time.
Police involved in the Tottenham investigations have claimed the right to refuse to allow suspects to be represented by solicitors of their choice. Two firms of solicitors in north London have been told by the police that it would be improper for them to act. The explanation given by the police was that information might be passed on to other defendants represented by those firms.
The other side of the coin—it causes me some anxiety—is that evidence given confidentially to the Police Complaints Authority in the case of Mrs. Jarrett seems to have been given to police officers involved in the Tottenham cases. The Minister must surely be disturbed about that. There may well be an early-day motion about it. I know that the Police Complaints Authority is concerned. There is a two-edged problem to which attention must be given.
The police maintained their position even after the firms concerned told them that questions of professional responsibility are a matter for judgment by solicitors, who are subject to their own professional code. The firms also told the police that in their judgment no conflict of interest arose in the cases, so that, in the normal course of events, they should have been allowed to represent the people who sought their assistance.
One solicitor agreed to the remand of her client, who was a juvenile, into police custody for further interviews in her presence. When she arrived at the police station, as arranged, she was told that she would not, after all, be allowed to see her client or be present during the interview. Later, the police tried to persuade other firms of solicitors to take over the case, despite the fact that legal aid had been granted. The client had specifically asked for that solicitor to represent him, and the solicitor was certain that no conflict of interest would arise because of other cases in which her firm was involved. In effect, the police prevented her from carrying out the contractual and professional obligations owed to the client. The client's statutory right, under the legal aid legislation, to be represented by a solicitor of his choice was also violated.
The examples that I have given were supplied to me by solicitors, and they must give rise to concern. They are serious complaints by solicitors and other people in the legal profession in the north London area. I do not think that the Minister would want to accept those practices as the norm on or after 1 January 1986.
With regard to training, the Minister is well aware of the police concern about the complexity and bureaucratic nature of some of the rules and of the Act itself. I have long said that the amount of training given to the police needs


to be increased. The training offered to police officers is still inadequate, given the complex nature of their task. The police, who are not lawyers, are asked to interpret legislation in the course of their day-to-day duty, despite having had only minimum training. I understand that in some cases police have had only one day's training on the codes and the Act. That must be unacceptable.
The stop and search issue is important. It is crucial to policing by consent. One of the reasons why the Government are in such acute trouble on law and order is that they promised to deliver a "get tough" policy. They delivered such a policy, but it failed precisely because they took other actions which undermined the cohesion of the local community, certainly in the inner city areas. It was further undermined particularly by the effects of long-term youth unemployment. That aggravated the racial problem, because members of the black community suffer most from inner city decline and decay and from long-term youth unemployment. Linked to that is a loss of confidence in the police. When that occurs, we have the worst of all situations.
The police catch most of their criminals by relying on evidence given to them by the public. About 80 per cent. of their convictions are achieved in that way. If that source of information dries up, they will be forced to resort to practices such as stop and search and using sledgehammers to break down front doors to gain entry and look for people or evidence that may or may not be there. In those circumstances, the confidence of the community in the police will decline. In that respect the Government bear a dreadful responsibility. They, more than any other body, have been responsible for the complex and deadly combination of factors which have resulted in an escalating crime rate in the United Kingdom, together with inner city disturbances of a nature and intensity that Britain has not seen for 100 years. That is a damning indictment of Government policies.
The searching of premises has similar dangerous effects. In view of the evidence given at the Jarrett inquiry, which has just concluded, the Minister has a particular duty, as the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) said, on the matter of warrants. When I was a probation officer, I recall there was one court in which police officers would ask for 10 or 20 warrants, which would be issued en bloc. That cannot be an acceptable practice, and questions must be asked about the way in which warrants are being granted if we are to restore the good relationship between the police and the public. I understand that there was a study recently in the Criminal Law Review which concluded that magistrates exert very little control over the issue of warrants. That is borne out by my own experience in the past and by some of the evidence which has emerged in the Jarrett case.
With regard to entry and search, there seem to be double standards in operation. People who live in lodging houses seem to have less right to privacy than those who live in private houses, either rented or owner-occupied. The tenant in a lodging house must be allowed the same rights as an ordinary resident in rented or owner-occupied property. That is an extremely important matter.
Another area of concern is the functioning and financing of the codes. The Lord Chancellor seems to have become a sort of Home Secretary in exile. Everyone on the Government Benches seems to accept that the Lord Chancellor is going to retire, but between now and his

retirement he seems to be determined to do exactly what he likes. Indeed, he might even be a Prime Minister in exile. He seems to be very much a law unto himself.
I have a particular axe to grind in regard to law centres, which have been allowed to run down. They were one of the best legal developments under the Labour Government. They have been very useful in inner city areas and in the country generally. They have been undermined, and in many places closed down or threatened with closure.
As far as I can understand, duty solicitors working outside office hours will get enhanced rates of pay, but solicitors chosen by the defendant will be in a different position. Under the Act, a person held in a police station has a right to ask for a solicitor of his own choice. If he then chooses a solicitor in the middle of the night, that solicitor will not be paid the enhanced rate. The solicitor must be tempted to refuse to act, so the right to choose a solicitor no longer exists. The right is undermined by the lack of resources.
I was disturbed by the Minister's comment that the Government could not have an open-ended public expenditure programme. It is difficult to sustain the argument that a principle in law has been agreed, but that it cannot be afforded. Apparently, in other pans of the legal system cost is no object. The cost of prosecuting the Cyprus service men would almost pay for any scheme. I am far from happy about the matter, and believe that it should be reconsidered by the Government.

Mr. Bermingham: Does my hon. Friend agree that if the truth were obtained in a police station because a man was properly advised, the cost of a subsequent abortive trial would be saved? For a few pence spent in time, many pounds would be saved.

Mr. Soley: I am always willing to listen to legal advice from many suitably qualified hon. Members, as long as I do not receive a bill afterwards. I am sure that my hon. Friend is right. I have a list of solicitors and barristers whom I would pay not to defend me. My hon. Friend is not on it.
Full advice is available only to those who are detained for arrestable offences, but £50 is the maximum available for non-arrestable offences. The most that a person who voluntarily goes to a police station on a non-arrestable offence will receive is £50. The going rate among solicitors is about £25 an hour—considerably more than I get—which would mean a maximum of two hours advice. After that time, the solicitor could presumably say "I am sorry, but I must leave now."

Mr. Bermingham: It includes travelling time.

Mr. Soley: I did not realise that. Therefore, it may be less than two hours before the solicitor leaves the police station.

Mr. Alex Carlile: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is illogical to pay solicitors less money for dealing with non-arrestable offences? In many cases, non-arrestable offences are more complex than arrestable offences. A flat rate would be better.

Mr. Soley: I have benefited from some more free legal advice. I am sure that the hon. and learned Gentleman is right.
What worries me more is the case of a person who is voluntarily or involuntarily at a police station on a non-arrestable offence, but who, after his solicitor leaves, is charged with an arrestable offence. There is nothing to stop that happening if the police decide that a more serious charge is appropriate.
An east London solicitor has given me an example. He states:
A group of five youths were arrested for threatening behaviour. They were detained at the Police Station for a long time and interviewed. After the interviews had been concluded, they were charged not with threatening behaviour but with conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm. None of these youths would have been entitled to more than £50 worth of advice.
There is real anxiety that the Government are not putting their money where their mouth is. The previous Home Secretary said:
We want a duty solicitor scheme that works, thereby showing in a practical way that the new safeguards in the Bill are not a paper exercise.
The Government have not lived up to that commitment.

Mr. Giles Shaw: I am conscious that I am trespassing on ground that is the province of my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor. Regarding the duty solicitor scheme, the figure of £50 was fixed after consultation between the Lord Chancellor and the Law Society, which believed it to be far and reasonable—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] The figure provides for the standby payment of £30 for duty solicitors for a 12-hour period and an enhanced rate of pay of £36 an hour for work undertaken out of office hours or at weekends, which includes travelling time. If the work relates to non-arrestable offences, the rate will be £27 an hour. In addition, £10 will be paid for telephone calls through which legal advice is provided. I do not accept the hon. Gentleman's conclusions that the provisions are not fair and reasonable. They are based on pilot studies that were undertaken. However, this is one aspect of the Act that will be considered, when it is put into practice, to discover whether improvements are necessary.

Mr. Soley: According to my hon. Friends, the Law Society did not agree to the figures or, indeed, to the principle. The Law Society was unhappy about the way in which the principle had been formulated. The Minister cannot hide behind that argument. The Lord Chancellor is trying to keep the scheme down and the Treasury wishes to save public money, so the scheme has been cut. The previous Home Secretary gave a clear commitment in Committee that these would not be paper safeguards; but that is what they are. Unless the Government reverse the process, we shall be in difficulty when the Act comes into effect.
I return to the letter of the solicitor from east London who contacted my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing). He gave another example that causes concern. His letter states:
In the past three weeks this firm have had two instances where they have been contacted, in one case by a wife and in the other by an employee, and requested to go to the Police Station, only to be told when we contacted the Police Station that there was nobody at the Police Station of the name that we requested. Subsequently, arrangements were made for someone from this office to go to the Police Station with a letter addressed to the detainee and a copy to the Custody Officer indicating that a call had been made to us and that we were available to attend at the Police Station for an interview. For reasons one can only

speculate on, within half an hour of the letter being delivered, the suspect was confirmed to be at the Police Station and permission was given for someone to be present at his interview.
I do not have the advantage of having served on the Committee, but my right hon. and hon. Friends who did were keen to press for the codes and they achieved several changes. However, the codes do not provide the proper balance between the rights of the suspect and police effectiveness, which is required to make matters clear to the public and the police. The codes are not a satisfactory response to a complicated Act that we believe has many undesirable aspects.
The already dangerously deteriorating relationship between the police and public will be made worse unless the Government do more to ensure that law centres and duty solicitors are financed and protected. The Government must ensure that the codes are adhered to and that police officers are given sufficient training so that we can begin the long hard road to regaining in key areas the support for the police that has been lost at a terrible cost to the community. That is a matter for which this Government bear a terrible responsibility.

Mr. Kenneth Hind: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister on producing simple codes of practice that can be understood by the general public.

Mr. Alex Carlile: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Hind: I shall complete my point and then I shall give way gladly to the hon. and learned Gentleman. The beauty of this document—

Mr. Carlile: Beauty?

Mr. Hind: —is that the man in the street can no longer say that the law is complex or that the document is written in legalese. He can go into any shop and buy this document, which will tell him precisely what his rights are when he enters a police station. This is a major development in police dealings with the general public.

Mr. Carlile: I agree with almost everything that the hon. Gentleman has said, although I do not share his perception of beauty. He said that any member of the public could enter a shop and buy the document. Does he agree that £3 is an extraordinary price to pay for a document which, after all, simply sets out our rights in a police station? Does he not believe that it should be made available to the public at a substantially lower price?

Mr. Hind: The hon. and learned Gentleman makes a good point, and no doubt my hon. Friend the Minister will bear it in mind.
An important effect of the codes of practice will be the necessary reorganisation of police training to meet their requirements. I hope that the Home Office realises the burdens that have been placed upon the police force when dealing with problems that arise from the codes of practice. They have tackled those problems manfully, and the Lancashire police force has informed me that it has been expensive to make police officers aware of the details of the document.
The document will be welcomed by the general public, not only because of its simplicity, but because it has strengthened some of the powers of the police and codified many of their common law powers. It has also translated them into simple terms which the public can understand. It has given the police more teeth when dealing with


criminals, and is clearly part of the Government's strategy to ensure a stronger and tougher approach to tackling crime.
The codes of practice reflect many of the lessons that were learnt in Scotland from a pilot scheme on stops and searches. That experiment revealed many offences that would not otherwise have been discovered, including the carrying of offensive weapons and the possession of drugs. I hope that the law will be applied strongly to football hooligans, who are mentioned in this document, and that the police can deal with them firmly but sensibly. The codes of practice will break down much of the aggression that occurs at football matches, which triggered the introduction of the Sporting Events (Control of Alcohol Etc.) Act 1985, following the riot at the European cup final in Brussels stadium.
One failing of the document is that it does not mention guns. Following the incident at Brixton, it is important that those whose premises are searched are aware that police officers are armed. In the light of what we know now, the tragic incident at Brixton might not have happened if those who owned the house had known that the police officers were armed. Those of us who are aware of the problems of Brixton and the difficulties of policing such an area will live to rue the day when that armed police officer entered the premises in the way that he did. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will consider including such a provision in the code of practice when it is reviewed in the light of experience.
Many solicitors have told me that the duty solicitor scheme is in many ways inadequate, especially in relation to summary offences. May I give an example? The solicitor's client may be interviewed by the police on the basis that he caused a death by reckless driving. However, subsequently, the police may consider that he committed a negligent act, so he will be charged with careless driving. That solicitor may spend hours in the police station on a serious matter, but he will not be remunerated in the way that he would expect for his hard work on such a serious offence. There are other examples. We know the difference between threatening behaviour under section 5 of the Public Order Act 1936, which is a summary offence, and affray, which is an indictable offence that could have entirely different consequences. Perhaps my hon. Friend will confer with our right hon. and noble Friend the Lord Chancellor about those matters.

Mr. Greg Knight: Is it not true that if someone goes to a police station voluntarily to be interviewed about an arrestable offence, he is entitled only to the lower tier of legal aid? That is just as bad an example as the one my hon. Friend gave.

Mr. Hind: I understand my hon. Friend's point, which is a good one. The codes of practice will ensure that all those involved—the police and every member of the general public in contact with the police—know their rights. Their aim is to safeguard everyone. We must ask ourselves whether, in terms of remuneration for the time expended and effort required by solicitors, we are adequately safeguarding the rights and interests of the public.
The most important aspect of the codes of practice is that a policeman may be disciplined for breaching them. The public will realise that any breach by a police officer can result in a complaints procedure under the authority of the Police Complaints Authority.
As a practitioner in the criminal courts for many years, I have been disturbed by the practice of recording interviews with defendants after the event. The practice leads to inaccuracy. Occasionally, juries have found that Enid Blyton had some hand in the writing of interviews after the event where dishonest police officers were involved. Such cases lead to suspicion in the public mind. I spent many years practising in Leeds, where there was the sad case of a man who died in custody, which resulted in the trial of several police officers. For many years that completely undermined public confidence in the police. A similar situation arose in Sheffield. The hon. Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham) is not in his place, but he will know of the famous rhino whip case in Sheffield, which had a similar effect upon juries there.
Paragraph 11.3 (b) (ii) of the codes of practice urges that a contemporaneous note should be made of interviews carried out in the police station. That is a major safeguard for the police in obtaining convictions in court, and for the defendant. In my experience, defendants are asked by the police to sign not only at the end of each page, but at the end of each answer, to show that what is written is correct. The interview is recorded as it takes place in front of those concerned. I think that I speak for most of my colleagues in the legal profession when I say that that strengthens the prosecution case a great deal. Wherever possible, that practice should be followed
unless in the investigating officer's view this would not be practicable or would interfere with the conduct of the interview".

Mr. Alex Carlile: I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way once again. Will he share with me the hope that as a result of the excellent provision in paragraph 11.3 (b) we shall not see what I understand has happened in some parts of Scotland—a sudden increase in the number of informal confessions made by accused persons while they are in a police car on the way to the police station?

Mr. Hind: I take that point. The proper course of action should be an interview at the police station. I hope that the police will bear that in mind. Obviously, a police officer faced with a man who insists on talking cannot ignore that. He must caution him and try as soon as possible when he gets to the police station to make a note of what was said. I am sure that such cases are rare. I have found in my practice that most of the time my clients are less than willing to spill out confessions of their evil deeds. That may be the experience of many of my hon. and learned Friends.
Tape recordings are dealt with in the codes of practice. I hope that my hon. Friend will bear in mind that tape recordings are becoming more widespread and are a matter of concern to many of those who appear in the courts. At the moment, solicitors are being given tapes where the most important matters relating to the offence are included within a large amount of conversation relating to the family and so on. No effort has been made in the Metropolitan police area to transcribe the recordings of such interviews and hand the transcripts with the tapes to the solicitor acting for the defence so that he may check them. Solicitors are asked to make their own transcripts. When my hon. Friend reviews the codes of practice, will he consider some system whereby we can avoid that and the problems of juries listening to a lot of irrelevant tape, which is a waste of the courts' time and money?
I congratulate my hon. Friend on the way in which the codes of practice deal with medical matters. Today, many more people who come before the courts are victims of drug abuse. A frightening number of heroin addicts are appearing before the courts. Therefore, police officers frequently have to deal with people who are suffering from withdrawal symptoms. It is important that police officers should take every precaution to ensure that they know whether an accused person is withdrawing. What such people say in their confession is completely undermined. They will say anything to get out of the police station to receive a further dose, whether by injection or by smoking.
Recently, I heard of a man who had been in a police station for 44 hours, during which time he was seen by four doctors. After the 44 hours were up he admitted the offence about which he was being questioned and made a voluntary statement. The police officer who gave evidence in court about the interviews said that he was not aware that the man was a heroin addict. He was not even aware that he had been visited by doctors. Those are important problems which, unfortunately, the police are facing as a consequence of our modern society. I urge the most careful consideration of that matter. A doctor should be called at every opportunity to decide whether a person is fit to be interviewed.
It is my experience that doctors have gone into the witness box to give evidence and have said that they will not say that an accused is unfit to be interviewed unless that person is "very ill indeed". That is wrong. There are two levels of heroin abuse — physical and mental dependence. How does one diagnose a craving if a man has been given drugs to repress the physical symptoms of drug withdrawal? I hope that my hon. Friend will bear those factors in mind when he considers the matter.
I hope that the codes of practice will see the end of the witness who is told to wait on the corner and say whether he recognises a person who walks round the corner. Unfortunately, that happens all too often. In November I heard of a police officer who waited outside a police station for an accused person whom he had not seen for 10½ months to sign on. He knew that that person was coming and he was there to identify him. There was no identification parade. We must stop that sort of thing. The police must be aware of the identification parade provisions in the codes of practice. They are clear and concise.
I welcome the provision in paragraph 20, on page 89, which deals with the taking of photographs at identification parades. Those of us who have appeared on behalf of the defence or the prosecution in trials involving identification parades know that such photographs are valuable when criticisms are being made of a person's memory and ability to point to the appropriate person in a line up.
I thank my hon. Friend for making clear on pages 91 and 92 of the codes of practice the procedure for showing photographs to potential witnesses. That is a welcome change. Every accused person will know the position in relation to that.
The codes of practice are a major step forward. I hope that, because of my comments, my hon. Friend will not think that I do not regard the codes as a major contribution to our criminal law. I do so regard them, but we would be failing in our duty to the House if we did not say something

that would improve the situation. These codes of practice have already been put into operation in some police stations. Let us hope that they will improve the quality of our investigations and the rights of people in police stations.

Mr. Alex Carlile: As someone who bears the many scars of having served on the Standing Committee that dealt with the Police and Criminal Evidence Bill, I congratulate the two novices on the Front Benches who have entered into the fray like real professionals. Like many who served on the Standing Committee, they have endeavoured to ensure that what we produce are practicable and reasonable codes which provide sufficient powers for the police and adequate protection for the suspect.
This debate tolls the knell of the passing of the judges rules, a fact which can cause no regret to anyone who has experience of practising in the courts. The judges rules have been honoured in their breach rather than in their obeisance, they have become discredited, and the judges themselves have generally recognised that they are almost valueless. These codes, imperfect as they inevitably are—after all, they are the first attempt at this type of dramatic and comprehensive change in police practice—are bound to be a great improvement.
I applaud the spirit in which the Minister of State has welcomed the criticism that has been made so far in this debate, and I hope that in the future that same spirit will be reflected in the Government's willingness to amend the codes as exigencies arise. The first may well be in connection with the use of firearms by the police.
1986 will be a year of great challenge for the police, not least because they will find themselves charged with the responsibility of putting into effect their part of the obligations imposed by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. That Act contains many complexities that I know are unwelcome to the police. Indeed, police officers around the country say ruefully that the old-fashioned police sergeant, who in the past has been a somewhat homely creature, has had to take what amounts to a management course in order to perform the duties of the custody officer.
I know many police station sergeants, and have confidence in their ability to take on board the duties that are now imposed on them. I hope that all police officers will bear in mind the words of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, who in Standing Committee said:
The individual has his protection, which is that a code exists which those in authority are deemed to know and obliged to operate … and on which a court, if it accepts the contention and acts upon it, acquits." — [Official Report, Standing Committee E, 1 March 1984; c. 1582.]
I hope that all police officers will be reminded of those words, and that they will realise that the courts will take an extremely condign view of police officers and their conduct if they are in breach of the codes.
I also hope that the Minister of State did not think me frivolous when I mentioned the Welsh language in an intervention. It is the second great indigenous language of the United Kingdom. In Wales, 500,000 people are more comfortable speaking in Welsh than in English, and some would find it difficult to understand even a simply drawn code such as this were it written only in English. I hope that in Wales there will be Welsh translations of the whole


of the code so that those who are more comfortable in the Welsh language can follow the code in their indigenous language.
I emphasise the point that I made in an intervention in the speech of the hon. Member for Lancashire, West (Mr. Hind). I suggested that the price of the code—£3 for the draft — is rather high. I was pleased when the hon. Gentleman agreed with me, and I hope that the Government will feel that a document such as this should be available to the public at half that price.
There are certain particular aspects of the codes with which I am not entirely happy, and I ask the Minister of State to consider the points that I shall now make and to consider possible future amendments. There is some evidence, mentioned by the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley) in some detail, that in the aftermath of the Tottenham riots police officers under pressure — and one understands the effect of that pressure—tended to be less careful than they should have been of the safeguards that should have been given to suspects. In the context of an inadequately funded duty solicitor scheme — experience will show, as the Law Society has submitted, that it is substantially underfunded—it is important that the code should be enforced by police officers, whatever the situation or pressure.
My general criticism of the codes is that they contain insufficient requirements for suspects to be informed of their right to be silent, of the limitation on police powers contained in the codes, and matters of that sort. On stop and search, paragraph 3A on page 16 states, inter alia, that
although there is no power to require a person to do so, there is nothing to prevent an officer from asking a person voluntarily to remove more than an outer coat, jacket or gloves in public.
It is all very well to state that, but neither the code nor the guidance notes require the police officer concerned to tell the member of the public that he or she is under no obligation to remove outer clothing other than a coat, jacket or gloves. If we are to maintain the spirit, expressed elsewhere in the codes, of good community relations in police work, it is important that people have the right to be informed. Indeed, an obligation should be imposed on the police by the codes to inform people of the limitations on police power.
Paragraph 2.2 on page 14 entitles a police officer, before carrying out a search under the stop and search procedure, to question a person
about his behaviour or his presence in circumstances which gave rise to the suspicion";
and the suspicion referred to is the reasonable suspicion that entitles the officer to carry out the stopping and searching. If the officer has a reasonable suspicion sufficient to stop the person concerned, if he has the reasonable suspicion to entitle him to carry out the search, and if he feels it right to question the person about his behaviour or presence in circumstances that give rise to that reasonable suspicion, he surely has the time to caution the suspect and he should be obliged to do so.
It is therefore a regrettable lacuna in the stop and search code that, in the action required before a search is carried out and where questioning takes place, a caution is not also required. I draw to the Minister's attention an important and particular concern highlighted by paragraph 4.4, which deals with the records that an officer is required to keep when carrying out the stop and search procedure. He

should normally seek the name, address and date of birth of the person searched, although the person searched has no obligation to give them.
I was encouraged, at a luncheon in the City of London a few days ago, to hear the Home Secretary make the clear and unequivocal statement that he does not believe in a national police force, which he thought would be a backward step. Like him, I recognise that one must allow a considerable amount of organisational autonomy to the individual police forces. Nevertheless, it is clearly the duty of the Home Secretary to ensure that the use made of records obtained during stop and search procedures, as set out in paragraph 4.4, is a proper one.
In the Suffolk police computer system, a person who has been stopped and searched three times within the county, which, after all, could be three visits to a match between Ipswich Town and Norwich City, if he can bear to go to such a match as often as three times, is then starred on the computer as a suspected person, although he is not suspected of any offence. The wholesale gathering of not only names and addresses, but dates of birth seems to be of more use in widespread information gathering than in dealing with any specific offences or suspicions.
It is vital that any records obtained in stop and search procedures should be used only for the purposes of stop and search procedures and not for more widespread information gathering purposes. Will the Minister give an undertaking that records of stops and searches will be destroyed after the relevant period and will not be used as general police intelligence information?

Mr. Soley: The hon. and learned Gentleman is making an important point. Is not his point even more important when we bear in mind that there is evidence to suggest that people who work shift work and travel during the night or the early hours of the morning are more likely to be stopped, and are stopped on a number of occasions?

Mr. Carlile: I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I recall many years ago cross-examining a police officer in a drunk driving case in a Welsh rural county—not mine—who confessed to me that life was so boring sitting in a police car at night that he stopped every car that went past. While that may be an extreme example, there is a risk of such behaviour being repeated. Therefore, it is crucial that the information obtained should be used properly.
I deal now with the code concerned with the search of premises and the seizure of property. I made my point in an intervention in the Minister's speech, but I re-emphasise it. It is crucial that whatever instructions are given to the police should be reinforced in the instructions to magistrates. Most magistrates are careful and competent. But we must not mince our words: some are sloppy and incompetent. We must ensure that such magistrates who are prepared to act merely as a rubber stamp because the law requires search warrants are not permitted to do so in the future, particularly as a magistrate issuing a search warrant and dealing with considerations such as whether notice of a search is to be given to the person who is to be searched and having to consider points such as "disproportionate inconvenience"—one of the least beautiful phrases in the codes—must have a clear understanding of what is being asked for and what is required.
I agree with the hon. Member for Hammersmith about the guidance 4A in the code dealing with searching premises and seizing property which states:
In the case of a lodging house or similar accommodation a search should not be made on the basis solely of the landlord's consent unless the tenant is unavailable and the matter is urgent.
I do not suppose that the club in Pall Mall in which I live during the week when the House is sitting would take too kindly to being called a boarding house, but it could be described, at a stretch of the imagination, as "similar accommodation". It is wrong that those of us who stay in clubs such as mine should have a lower standard applied to them in the code than those living in their own homes. This is a serious point, which applies to the many young people in particular who not only live in lodging houses but now, it would appear, will be forced by the Government's policy on bed and breakfast accommodation to lead a nomadic existence, travelling every few months from one lodging house to another.
Paragraph 3.1 on the code of questioning and detention sets out a right for a person who has been detained to consult
this and the other codes of practice.
I hope that the Minister will ensure that this is so and that suspects who ask to see the codes of practice and who, I hope, will be told of their availability will be given the time to read them. It is no use simply being shown a pretty book with a red cover if one is not given the opportunity to find out what one's rights are. I counsel that police officers be encouraged to show some patience towards those members of the public who wish to avail themselves of the opportunity to read about what their rights are.

Mr. David Ashby: Rather than having the code of practice, should there not be five, easily understood points about rights to solicitors and so on?

Mr. Carlile: The hon. Gentleman has a great deal of experience in dealing with the technical matters in the courts. It is highly desirable that a simple summary of the main rights be available, although I emphasise that when people in custody ask for the code, as they are entitled to do under this provision, they should be given enough time to read the relevant parts.
I feel some confidence—at least a hope—that on the basis of what we have heard from the Minister the Government will scrutinise closely the operation of the codes. I hope that chief constables will be told by the Government of the importance of punishing breaches of the codes in disciplinary proceedings, particularly in cases in which, in the courts of England and Wales, judges have been faced with difficult evidential problems because of breaches of the codes by police officers. We know—because we are practical people, I hope—that police officers will breach the codes from time to time. Some of the breaches will be trivial, and perhaps we should not take too serious a view of them. But when breaches are significant, particularly when they affect the outcome of a case, the result of disciplinary proceedings should be serious in its consequences for the police officers concerned.
In welcoming the codes on their way into the police stations of this land, I ask the Minister of State to consider seriously the possibility of providing in Government time in the not-too-distant-future a further opportunity for debate so that once again we may scrutinise the codes not as to how we feel they ought to work, but as to how they are working in practice.

Sir John Farr: Like all the other hon. Members who have taken part in the debate, I welcome the codes. Many of my constituents will be reassured by having the right of access to the codes when they reach the statute book on 1 January 1986. I say that advisedly. When I have visited youth clubs and other clubs in my constituency, I have been surprised by the number of times, for well over a year now, that people have said to me that it would be a great help if there were police codes of practice. We have such codes now.
The codes are complex, and there are four of them. Reference has been made to the fact that their cost—£3—will be a drawback. I strongly urge the Government to divide the book into four and to make the codes separately available, free of charge, to any member of the public who wants them. They should be made available, free of charge, in every police station in the country from 1 January 1986. That would be a very good investment, and the Government would go a long way towards restoring confidence in the police and in the way that criminal matters are dealt with in Britain.
I wish to raise two points on the codes. The first point relates to something which they do not contain, but which my hon. Friend the Minister of State ought to think of including. Paragraph 17 of code C deals with the charging of detained persons. There are one or two serious omissions. No mention is made of recording an interview on a tape or by other magnetic means. That ought to be done automatically, wherever possible. I refer in particular to paragraph 17.1, which deals with a prisoner who is about to be charged with a serious offence. He should be photographed when he enters police custody. A photograph of his condition when he enters the police station should automatically be taken. It may be difficult to put this into effect, but it is particularly important if a vicious crime has been committed and public feeling is running high.
It would be in the interests of the police if a photograph were taken to show the physical, external condition of a suspect who is brought to the police station on a grave charge. There would then not be the incident of the kind that occurred at the time of the pub bombing in Birmingham a few years ago. Photographs were not taken until 54 hours after the suspects had entered police custody. It was impossible to compare their condition then with their condition when they were taken into police custody, because no photographic record was made at that time. When major charges are laid, the police would be safeguarded if a photographic record were kept of the condition of suspects when they entered police custody.
My second point, on which many hon. Members have touched, relates to the omission from the codes of the conduct of the police in the use, issuing and handling of firearms. My hon. Friend said that the matter was being given urgent attention, but the country demands today nothing less of him than another code of practice which relates entirely to that matter. Recently, so many mistakes have been made by the police in matters in which they have been trained that in some cases, where the police are known to be armed, ordinary people run for their lives. I shall not go into these cases in great detail, but not so long ago in the west end of London armed police fired and injured the wrong person without making any proper challenge. There is also the sad case of the police officer


who entered a house with a search warrant and was armed with a cocked handgun which he set on the edge of a child's cot, with subsequent fatal results.
The matters about which the public should know should be laid down in a code of conduct for the House to debate. They should include not only the conditions in which one would expect the police to be armed and the eventualities for which the police should be prepared, but the type and calibre of weapon to be used, the type of training that officers must receive before they are allowed to use the weapons in public and, more important, instructions in the handling of a firearm by a trained police officer, whether or not someone is suspected of having committed a crime.
Hon. Members have already said that a warrant must be issued by a magistrates court for a house to be searched. In recent months public happenings have made a strong case for saying that unless there is an emergency the police should obtain a warrant before they are allowed to arm themselves and go among the public.
Generally I welcome the codes, and I hope that my hon. Friend will seriously consider making them widely available, because they will be a popular document for general use.

Mr. Gerald Bermingham (St. Helens, South): I shall begin by drawing the Minister's attention to one of my interventions in his opening speech which he misunderstood. He may recall that I intervened regarding persons who enter a police station voluntarily. I drew a contrast between the rights of the voluntary attender and those of the detained person. The rights of the detained person are safeguarded by the custody officer, but the rights of the voluntary attender, which are referred to on page 38 of the draft codes, are protected by nobody. The draft codes merely state that he must be shown the same kindness and courtesy and have the same facilities extended to him, until he becomes a detained person, when he goes into the care of a custody officer. I suggested that we might overcome the hiatus, which could give rise to arguments in the court room later, which is what we are seeking to avoid, by saying that when a person voluntarily attends a police station the custody officer shall seek to ensure that his rights are maintained.
I served on the Police and Criminal Evidence Bill Committee, with its 159 sittings. The object of the exercise was to try, whenever possible, to improve the Bill. Efforts were made by all those hon. Members who served on the Committee to see whether that could be achieved. I ask the Minister to take on board the point that I have made, which is made in a spirit of helpfulness rather than confrontation.
In Committee, I moved a number of amendments, in particular, with regard to the rights and duties of the custody officer and the rights of prisoners. Although I now practise as a barrister, for many years I was a practising solicitor and I spent many a long hour in police stations.
I intend to return to the point that I mentioned during my intervention about the duty solicitor scheme. Standing, as it were, one removed from the scheme, I can perhaps say some of the things that solicitors might not want to say for fear of being thought to be trying to forward their own interests. There is much merit in the duty solicitor scheme.
The hon. Member for Leicestershire, North-West (Mr. Ashby) made a valid and valuable point when he suggested that a synopsis of the codes of practice should be given to

the prisoner or the detained person at the moment of detention. It is not beyond the wit of man to provide a simple leaflet printed in large print. Some people have difficulty in reading. Many of the people who find themselves detained in police stations are not just nervous and frightened; they occasionally have some educational difficulties. The codes of practice are contained in the type of book that one would expect to read at one's leisure. Its contents can be condensed into five or six simple headings such as, "You have the right to remain silent", "You have the right to consult a solicitor", "The custody officer is in charge of you", or "You cannot be detained for more than 24 hours without x, y or z happening."
The Americans have an expression about reading a person his rights. The English have always seemed reluctant to do that. I have never understood why. We should consider the result. Games can be played in police stations to see whether people can be tricked into confessions. They are occasionally frightened into doing so. No one admires such evidence. When it is analysed later in a court, it only sours the relationship between the public and the police and destroys much of the good work that police officers have done over many years.
It is to avoid such problems that many of us have pressed for a considerable time for a detained person's rights to be protected. The codes of practice are perhaps a first step along the long road towards achieving a sensible system which will remove investigation from interrogation and towards evidence.
No one can argue with evidence. The evidence speaks for itself. I shall repeat what I said in Committee. The finest case that can ever be brought by the prosecution is one that does not rely for its evidence or one ounce of its strength upon an interview in a police station. The evidence speaks for itself. That is a proper case.
We became lazy in the 1960s and 1970s and moved away from gathering evidence towards the interrogative type of investigation — "Get a confession; get an admission." We had arguments in the 1970s about verhals. "He verballed me up, guv"—the classic defence that every lawyer has heard.
Solicitors tried to move away from that and we adopted the practice of contemporaneous notes. Now we are moving towards tape recordings. Eventually, I hope, we shall move back to obtaining evidence, which will shorten many criminal trials in this country.
That is one of the reasons why the Treasury ought to stop doing its figures. I have said in Standing Committee and in the Chamber on numerous occasions that if one wants to mess something up, one need only let the Treasury get its hands on it. Basically, the Treasury does not understand anything. I suspect that whoever in the Treasury advised the Lord Chancellor's Department about the duty solicitor scheme did not have a clue what he or she was talking about. The Treasury does not seem to appreciate that the presence of a solicitor at a police station can be a good thing. It can shorten the time of interview, reduce the amount of unpleasantness in the case and very often, because proper advice is given, get the right result at an early stage.
In the face of all that, the Treasury can say. "If you work unsocial hours and the offence is not an arrestable one we shall limit payment to £50". The Law Society does not agree, and it has the advantage that the people on its


committees have actually done the job. They have turned out in the middle of the night and they know the difficulties that can arise.

Mr. Ashby: The allowance of only two hours under the legal aid scheme for duty solicitors may be wholly inappropriate in certain circumstances. It is absolutely ludicrous and totally misunderstands the true position. The whole problem has been caused by people who have no idea about what really happens.

Mr. Bermingham: I have practical and personal experience of yesteryear when I was a solicitor. I was called out at night to go to police stations on numerous occasions, as were my staff and partners. I was fortunate enough to practise in a city with only four or five police stations, all of which were within 10 or 20 minutes' drive from my house. If someone were arrested at Rotherham, 12 or 13 miles from the solicitor's home—you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, know the area as well as I do—the travelling time may be half an hour. There is always a delay at the police station before one sees the client. In the early hours of the morning there seem to be interminable reasons for delay. That may not be due to nastiness. I always try to be kind and put it down to forgetfulness on the part of the officer, but very often police officers do not want a solicitor to see the client. One eventually gets to meet the client about an hour after starting out. If there is a limit of two hours in cost and credit time, the actual time spent with the client will be only half an hour.
In reality, solicitors always stay, regardless of what they are paid. That is said to be a weakness on the part of solicitors, but I believe that it is a great credit to the profession. I recall an occasion when a man voluntarily went to a police station in Birmingham with his solicitor. The solicitor was with him at the police station for 12 hours. Under the new scheme the solicitor would be paid only £50. The profession is an honourable one and it is not given proper and due credit for that. Solicitors have always been a target for criticism.

Mr. Ashby: And banisters.

Mr. Bermingham: Indeed. I was about to say that the other branch of the profession has also been a target.
It is an honourable profession, and solicitors will stay with their clients. It is disgraceful that undertakings given in good faith are now being dishonoured because of advice given in other quarters by people who do not know what they are talking about.
A 24-hour duty solicitor scheme means solicitors being prepared to turn out at 3, 4 or 5 o'clock on a Sunday morning, to drop their family plans for the weekend and to disrupt their social life because police stations must be covered 24 hours a day. We are asking a great deal of those solicitors, but we are offering them very little in return. The Treasury and the Lord Chancellor's Department then decide that £X is sufficient and the popular press goes on about how much the solicitors are earning. Solicitors have overheads——

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Order. I find it difficult to see what solicitors' remuneration has to do with the codes before us.

Mr. Bermingham: The codes refer to the right of access to lawyers, and a duty solicitor scheme is very

much part of the package. Accordingly, the terms and conditions of that duty solicitor scheme must perforce be part of the debate.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The debate is about the codes of practice. I see none of those matters in the codes of practice.

Mr. Bermingham: With great respect, Mr. Deputy Speaker, the matter is dealt with in paragraphs 3.1 and 6 of section C of the code. Paragraph 3.1 on page 40 provides that when a person is at a police station
having attended there voluntarily, the custody officer must inform him of the following rights … the right to consult a solicitor in accordance with section 6 below".

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The remuneration of solicitors is not mentioned in paragraph 3.1 or, so far as I can see, anywhere else in the codes of practice. I think that the hon. Gentleman should pursue that matter at some other time.

Mr. Bermingham: This is probably the only opportunity that we shall have to pursue it, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I appreciate that the Chair rules and I must obey. However, I think that the point has been made. I hope that the Minister will take it on board as it is a serious professional matter.
We are for ever driven back to the purpose behind the code of practice, which is to give people the right of access to a solicitor. One of the holes in the code is perhaps that there are still occasions on which such access can be denied. I have conceded that grave and serious matters must be involved which may later be challenged in the court, but I have never understood the reluctance of police officers to allow a defendant to take legal advice. Of course, there are safeguards for rare or exceptional circumstances, but, just as the judges rules were honoured more in the breach than in the observance, I hope that with regard to the right of access to a lawyer the courts will in future take a far sterner and more robust view of cases in which access has been denied.
In the past, prosecutions have often attempted to justify such denial with post-hindsight arguments. Why have certain police officers in this country found it necessary to take that attitude? What are they frightened of? That is the real question. If the evidence is strong, they have nothing to hide, so why deny the client access to a lawyer?
There are various other aspects of the codes of practice that one could pursue, but I ask the Minister to consider the central point: that if justice is to be even-handed and fair, if we are to avoid cases like the Confait case and if we are to get rid of the long and tedious court room arguments about what was said at one interview or another and the slanging matches about alleged pressure and bullying, the code of conduct at interviews and in police stations must be fair and it must be seen to be fair.
The codes of conduct are a step towards that, if they are enforced, and we have the assurance that they will be. I have listened to that assurance, but I hope that hon. Members will be able to review the matter from time to time. I await with interest to see where there are breaches of the codes and what actually happens. Will the codes have the teeth that they are said to have? I am not yet convinced. Perhaps I am by nature cynical or I have had too many years of watching what has happened to be converted overnight like St. Paul on the road to Damascus.
A step has been taken, and I shall watch with interest what happens. I ask the Minister for an assurance that


these matters will be reviewed openly from time to time and that, where errors and mistakes are found, rectification will be not some time in the future but immediate, so that in our court rooms trials become trials based on evidence and not, as happens on many occasions, personalities.

Mr. Greg Knight: Those of us who are involved professionally with police powers have known for many years that they are confusing and haphazard. For example, the police had the power to stop and search for stolen goods in some cities, but not in others. One particularly outrageous example was that they could obtain a search warrant to look for birds' eggs, but not for a murder weapon. Anyone who realised the inconsistencies would agree that something needed to be done to codify and improve the law.
I hope that no one in the House will object to the introduction of these codes or mourn the passing of the judges rules. The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) said, quite rightly, that the judges rules were outdated. They were also ignored in many instances. If a suspect knew that they existed and asked a police officer for a copy of them, the police officer would regard that as something of a joke.
Paragraph 1 of the code is a vast improvement because it makes it clear that the codes will be made available at police stations for use not only by the police but, where requested, by a suspect. I agreed with my hon. Friend the Member for Leicestershire, North-West (Mr. Ashby) when he asked whether it would be possible for a brief resumé of the codes to be printed and made available at police stations free of charge. Comment has been made about reducing the price of the codes. Perhaps a compromise would be to produce an abridged version of the codes and make that available free of charge.
Many hon. Members have rightly expressed their concern about abuse. We all know that abuse has occurred under our present law. The hon. Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham) said that he did not like cases in which the police based their evidence on a confession. Unfortunately—I hope that he will agree with me—in the great majority of cases that come before the courts the evidence that tilts the scales, and in some cases the only evidence, is a confession. I have been concerned for many years about the undue pressure that can be put on a suspect to get him to confess to a crime that he may not have committed. That pressure is likely to be most severe in the cases where the suspect needs help and guidance the most.
Let me give an example. Very often—I say that with regret, but I am afraid that it happens very often—a police officer will refuse a telephone call to a suspect, make a threat or say that the suspect will not be given bail until he has made a confession, or say that a more serious charge will be preferred unless a confession is made. That usually happens when the police officer knows that the suspect has previous convictions. The relevance of that is that when the case comes to court, if the accused person seeks to tell the court the truth—that he was put under that pressure and made the confession just to get out of the police station—that is regarded as an attack on the character of the police. Therefore, the tribunal is made aware before it has determined his innocence or guilt that he had previously come to the notice of the police. In those circumstances, how is he to get a fair trial?
The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery suggested that we should look at codes of practice for magistrates. I have some sympathy with him in that argument. I may be paraphrasing, but in a well-known case a magistrate announced in open court, "In this case there is a conflict between the police evidence and the evidence given by the defence, and in such a case we always prefer the evidence of the police." That case went to appeal, and the conviction was rightly quashed. In how many cases does the chairman of the bench think that but does not say it? It is important to ensure not only that the police follow the guidelines but that proper training and guidelines are given to magistrates.
I agreed with many of the comments by the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley), although he got carried away by his rhetoric when he ventured on to our inner city problems. At one stage in his speech I wondered whether he was considering a career in the Church—

Mr. Soley: They would not want me—they are all Marxists.

Mr. Knight: I am glad to hear the comments of the Opposition Front Bench spokesman.
The hon. Gentleman said that in many cases the police obtained their evidence as a result of help from the public. He was right. He was also right in saying that, because of that, the police rely on the public for their detection work or at least for help in putting together a case. The relevance of that to the codes is that the good police officer, who wants to get results and is willing—most are—to play the game by the rules, will see that there is a benefit to be obtained by the police in getting the confidence of the public, not alienating the public.
Some would say that the safeguards were not adequate in the past, but new safeguards are now introduced with those new codes. For example, a new independent Police Complaints Authority has been set up and a statutory duty has been imposed on all police forces to set up proper consultative arrangements with representatives of local communities. I hope that those two items will help the police to gain and retain the confidence of the public in many areas.
Concern has been expressed about the 24-hour duty solicitor scheme. I note the comments that you made earlier, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The point which I wish to make, and which I thought the hon. Member for St. Helens, South was making, is that if the codes give an accused person the right to consult a solicitor, it is valueless if no solicitor is prepared to come out because he is not being paid sufficient remuneration to undertake the work required of him. Concern has been expressed in my branch of the profession about the arrangements that the Lord Chancellor has said will apply to fees to enable solicitors to give advice under the codes. I think that that was the relevance of the point which the hon. Member for St. Helens, South made.
I received a letter only this week from the secretary of the contentious business sub-committee of the Derby law society, Mr. Peter Ashworth, who is a respected local advocate in Derby. He expresses concern and the concern of solicitors in Derby about the operation of the 24-hour scheme. In his letter he says:
As you know, in Derby there has been a Duty Solicitor Scheme in operation now for some time at the Derby city Magistrates court. This has proved to be a great help to those people who are bewildered and concerned about their problems …".

He goes on to say:


it is hoped that a 24 hour Duty Solicitor Scheme will be mounted in Derby and district. Obviously, this will be of public benefit. However, there are grave misgivings about the way in which this scheme has been constrained by the Government and there are some areas where I believe it will not be possible for it to commence operation.
That, Mr. Deputy Speaker, subject to your view on the matter, is the relevance of the comments about remuneration in the draft codes that we are considering. I emphasise the point which the hon. Member for St. Helens, South made and, as I understand it, these arrangements were made without prior consultation with the Law Society. If there was consultation, there was certainly no agreement on how the scheme should be implemented.

Mr. Alex Carlile: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there was consultation with the Law Society but that the the Law Society made strong representations and did not agree with the scheme that has been imposed upon it?

Mr. Knight: That may be the case, but I shall be happy to accept the comments that my hon. Friend the Minister will make in reply. According to the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery, there was consultation but no consensus. There was no consensus over the introduction of this two-tier scheme. Concern has been expressed about the lower tier, although no one suggests that the entire scheme will be inoperable. However, I have misgivings concerning the lower tier and how it will operate.
I thought—I hope that the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—that the £50 limit included solicitors' travelling time. In tests carried out by the Law Society it has been shown that on average 30 or 40 minutes is used as travelling time in each direction. If this is not so, I would welcome a denial from my hon. Friend the Minister.
Justice in society can be achieved only by striking the correct balance between the power given to the police and the rights of the individual. Despite my slight misgivings, I believe that these codes get the balance right and I wish them success.

Mr. David Ashby: I apologise to the House for not being present for all of the debate, but I had a constituency problem to attend to.
I have listened with great interest to the debate and everything that I have heard has been sensible. I welcome these codes, just as I welcome increasingly the Police and Evidence Act 1984 and the improvements which have come with its implementation. I was most unhappy about the 96-hour provision. The Act has much that is good about it, and the same can be said for the codes. I am confident that the codes will bring dignity and sense to policing and to the courts, which we have not had so far. Other countries have enjoyed those things, but unfortunately we have not.
I hope that the days are gone of solicitors being involved in ignominous run arounds. All too often solicitors telephone a police officer, only to be told that he is not available, or that a message will be passed to him. Unfortunately, in many instances the solicitor's message is not conveyed. I have been involved in a case for about five weeks, during which examples of lack of contact between solicitors and police officers have come to light.

It is awful to think of solicitors travelling from London to Nottingham and being unable to see their clients. In many instances they have been told that they would be able to see them, but on arrival are told that that is not possible. The solicitor takes a train back to London, and during the journey his client may well appear before the court. That happens frequently, and the codes, if they are properly implemented, will stop it. They will bring back dignity and confidence to the police. In that sense, we are doing much for law and order. That can be said for the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and for the codes of conduct.
The police depend upon the public, and it is unfortunate that they have forgotten that at times. They must remember that they will not be able to achieve what they want without the confidence and support of the public. Their detection rates will not increase without that support. We must give the public confidence in the police, by means of the codes. They will be a most valuable addition to the current framework and we must respond to them positively. Let us adopt them with enthusiasm and ensure that they are followed and implemented. There is a great future for law, order and justice if we follow the codes.
I cannot wait for the introduction of tape recorded interviews. Those of us who have been involved in cases where tape recordings have been used know that they have been enormously successful. Some cases which ran for five weeks and cost many thousands of pounds could have been disposed of in three days if tape recordings had been available. The savings involved in disposing in three days of a case which would otherwise run for five weeks would pay for the tape recording of all the interviews that have taken place in south-east England during the past year. On that basis, why were tape recordings not introduced 10 years ago?
If a system of tape recording is implemented properly, an enormous amount of court time will be saved. An enormous sum is being spent on the building of courts and the appointing of extra judges, but the new courts and the newly appointed judges could become superfluous once we begin to record interviews. There have been 10-week trials involving enormous numbers of exchanges such as "He said that," "No he did not," "Yes, he did," "No, he did not." That will disappear. The interviews will be recorded on tape and, as the hon. Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham) said, we shall be looking for proper detective work. There will be proper interrogations and proper admissions in which everyone will have confidence. Jurors will be able properly to convict or otherwise.
A case at the Old Bailey came to an end recenty after running for an enormously long time. It would have been marvellous if the interviews in that case had been recorded on tape. I believe that the case lasted for four months. It would probably have lasted for a week if the interrogations had been recorded on tape.
I apologise to the House for intervening at a late stage in the debate. However, I beg my hon. Friend the Minister to introduce the tape recording of interviews and interrogations. Codes of conduct are fine, but for goodness sake let us have tape recordings. My hon. Friend will be surprised at the money that will be saved by their introduction. I cannot understand why the Treasury has not been insistent that tape recordings should be used. There will be enormous savings in both time and money, and justice will benefit accordingly.

Mr. Giles Shaw: The refreshing intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Leicestershire, North-West (Mr. Ashby) has given me a sudden thirst for the economies of scale of tape recording. However, I have to remind myself that I must equip every police station with an appropriate room which is sound proofed and generally appropriate to the purpose for which it must be used.Nevertheless, I welcome the enthusiasm of my hon. Friend, and I can assure him that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary shares his view. Indeed, we shall be starting to extend gradually from the trial areas in which tape recorders have been used.
The subject of tape recording was raised by the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) and my hon. Friends the Members for Leicestershire, North-West and for Lancashire, West (Mr. Hind). A further code of practice will, of course, be laid before the House in accordance with the provisions of section 60 which require the Secretary of State
(a) to issue a code of practice in connection with the tape-recording of interviews of persons
and
(b) to make an order requiring the tape-recording of interviews of persons".
I hope that that will not be too long delayed. Indeed, I trust that it will make its appearance in the course of next year.

Sir John Farr: Will the new code also include the provision of video recorders?

Mr. Shaw: That has not been part of the experimentation which we have undertaken with tape recording. I take my hon. Friend's point that that is yet another useful technological development. In so far as we are wishing primarily to deal with evidence which has been recorded and which can be understood and transmitted, I think that the video recorder is, in a sense, an excessive development. Let us watch the way in which these technologies are evolved in court cases and review the matter in due course.
I sound one note of caution regarding the reference of my hon. Friend the Member for Lancashire, West to the transcripts of tape recording. The joyous economy which my hon. Friend the Member for Leicestershire, North-West rightly seized in the matter of tape recording would fairly rapidly disappear if every tape recording had to be fully transcribed. I am sure that those of my hon. Friends who are lawyers will readily recognise that armfuls of printouts would not be the way to proceed if they and the Government wished to simplify the matter and reduce the cost of court proceedings. I do not, therefore, welcome the suggestion made by my hon. Friend the Member for Lancashire, West that there should be provision for the supply of transcripts.

Mr. Ashby: I am convinced from cases I have done myself in which there have been tape recordings that it is totally unnecessary to have a full transcript of the tape recording. It is necessary only to have the tape recording available to be heard. It is necessary to have transcribed only the choice parts which are the admissions.

Mr. Shaw: I am delighted to have that support from my hon. Friend. No doubt all good members of the Law Society will take note of the way my hon. Friend puts his point, because this matter will doubtless cause concern to lawyers at some stage.
I turn to the speech of the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley). I understood his point about the increased bureaucracy which is inherent in the Act and not only in the codes of practice. With regard to training, I think that the hon. Gentleman was suggesting that there was rather slender training, but I can reassure him that substantial training is involved. Every officer has been through a course which lasts for almost a fortnight for those involved in sergeant's training and almost three days for those involved in constable's training to ensure that there is a working understanding of what is required when the Act becomes fully operational on 1 January next year.
I accept that the anxiety is one that forces face in relation to the controls imposed, the keeping of records and the bureaucratic elements within the legislation. In particular, the role of the custody sergeant to which the hon. Gentleman referred will be crucial. The maintenance of duties of the custody sergeant and the record of how he deals with the persons in his care are also crucial to the rights of the suspect which have been such a feature of the debate. This is a matter with which many forces have now experimented and those that I have visited are of the opinion that the Act in action is somewhat less formidable than the Act in prospect. I sincerely hope that that opinion will come to be shared generally.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the PSI report in relation to stop and search powers. My understanding is that the report accepted that stop and search powers were of use in the detection of offences and that they should not be withdrawn but be proceeded with. I think that the concern was that there would be a need for safeguards to ensure adequate supervision of the exercise of the power. That is what the codes are, setting out to achieve, and. I hope that that will be the case in practice.
When the hon. Gentleman referred to lodging houses, I think that he had in mind note 4A on page 27 of the code. I am a little concerned that he should interpret it in the way that he did, suggesting that lodging houses were dealt with differently. The note for guidance says:
In the case of a lodging house or similar accommodation a search should not be made on the basis solely of a landlord's consent".
That is trying to protect the tenant's right to determine access to his flat rather than the right of the landlord, which is so frequently the case at present. I hope that there will be a slightly greater protection of the tenant, which I think the hon. Gentleman had in mind. There is still the provision that, if the tenant is unavailable and the matter is urgent, the police may rely only on the landlord's consent. The intention, however, is to offer greater protection from entry to the tenant's property, so that it shall not be simply on the say-so of the landlord.

Mr. Soley: Surely the point is that if the tenant is not available the entry should be effected only when the police have a warrant, and not on the say-so of somebody else.

Mr. Shaw: I accept that. The question is one of search with consent, and whether the urgency of the matter overlies the requirement of consent. I take the hon. Gentleman's point, and obviously in practice we shall have to see how it is carried out.
My hon. Friend the Member for Lancashire, West raised several points, and I have dealt with the use of tape recordings. I welcome his comments on the language used in the codes. We have tried hard to adopt language which can be widely used.
In an intervention when the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery was speaking, my hon. Friend the Member for Leicestershire, North-West suggested that there should be a simplified leaflet setting out the main conditions. Provision is made in the code for the suspect's rights to be drawn to his attention. At paragraph 3.2 on page 40, it says:
The custody officer must give the person a written notice setting out the above three rights".
That refers to the right to have someone informed, the right to consult a solicitor, and the right to consult the code of practice. There is also a right to a copy of the custody record in accordance with the proceedings set out in paragraph 2.4. That will go some way towards making provision for a simplified version of the code to be drawn to the attention of all suspects. I hope that it will meet with the approval of those who have raised the point.
The four basic rights—to be set out in a leaflet handed to the suspect—would be the right to have someone informed, the right to legal advice, the right to a copy of the code of practice and the right to a copy of the custody record.

Mr. Bermingham: Perhaps in one of the Home Office directions this suggestion could be made to police forces, and that might put the matter in motion. If the leaflet could be handed to the person at the time when he signed the detained person's sheet, the problem would be covered.

Mr. Shaw: I take on board the hon. Gentleman's sensible suggestion and will see that that is done in relation to police practice.
The provision that my hon. Friend the Member for Lancashire, West suggested—to have a simplified or shortened leaflet setting out the rights of the individual—will be met. I emphasise that the codes of practice, whether they cost £3 or not, will be available in every police station in England and Wales. I confirm that the Welsh language will be used, as it is already where Government documents are involved.
I have already referred to the Welsh language matter that was raised by the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery. He also mentioned magistrates and warrants. I understand the unease that has been expressed in the debate about magistrates' warrants. My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir J. Farr) also raised that point. Sections 15 and 16 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act lay down the condition under which warrants are issued. The police will make applications for warrants on forms to be issued by the Home Office, together with a circular note about the provision of the code. A standard application form will be used when a police officer makes an application to a magistrate. The form will clearly set out the information needed for the magistrate to satisfy himself that the requirements of the Act have been met.
However, I accept the points that have been raised. If that system is ineffective, I agree that we should have to consider further guidance to ensure that the practice can be carried out effectively. The intention is to do what the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery seeks, which is to formalise and structure the procedure under which a magistrate can issue a warrant.
The hon. Member for St. Helens, South was in robust form when he dealt with the duty solicitor scheme. My

hon. Friend the Member for Derby, North (Mr. Knight) also raised that matter. At the risk of getting it wrong again, I can now correct myself by stating that the Law Society was substantially consulted by the Lord Chancellor's Department, but it did not consent to the two-tier arrangement that forms the present basis of the duty solicitor scheme. The arrangement was not regarded with much enthusiasm, but no alternative was offered by the Law Society for a scheme that would enable the 24-hour duty provisions to be enacted as speedily as we would wish. The scheme has not, as yet, gained the support of the Law Society, but the society was closely consulted.
I should tell the hon. Member for St. Helens, South that there will be an opportunity further to assess these matters when the provisions for legal aid orders are laid before the House, for one of which the affirmative procedure will be applied. I am happy to state that the Solicitor-General will move the orders. That will allow for discussion among lawyers, which will be signally more appropriate than a discussion with me.
I confirm for the benefit of my hon. Friend the Member for Derby, North that the £50 limit on costs in the second tier for non-arrestable offences will include the payment for travelling time. My hon. Friend and the hon. Member for St. Helens, South accused the Government of proceeding without any idea about what might happen in practice. In pilot tests, the £50 figure emerged as the average cost in the majority of cases, although I accept that nothing will determine that figure more accurately than putting the scheme into practice. Although my hon. Friend the Member for Derby, North is dissatisfied with the limit, I suspect that he would welcome some scheme rather than none.
We must ensure that the provision of consultation with a lawyer is made available as of right to the suspect, and made available quickly. I must tell the hon. Member for St. Helens, South that the Lord Chancellor has undertaken to keep the operation of the scheme under early review. I am sure that decisions will be made in the light of experience.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough asked about firearms. I said in response to an earlier intervention that the Police Complaints Authority is likely to report on the use of firearms in searches, which clearly played a part in two of the tragic cases that are before the authority. My hon. Friend will recognise that the use of firearms is acutely sensitive in relation not only to the police but to the public. Therefore, it would be wrong for me to say more tonight than that I believe that the public interest will be served by the report of the Police Complaints Authority. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has made it clear that any advice from the authority on training in the use of firearms and the methods by which those who use firearms are selected will be carefully and seriously considered. My hon. Friend will recall that, not too long ago, there was a thorough review of police practice in relation to firearms after the Waldorf case, which no doubt we all remember well.
I understand my hon. Friend's anxiety, but I assure him that such matters are being reviewed by the Police Complaints Authority. Should it see fit, as I suspect it will, to make a special report on the matter, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will consider the lessons to be learnt from such cases.
I welcome the way in which hon. Members have contributed to our debate on the codes. It is clear that hon.


Members on both sides of the House believe that the codes are a significant step forward. Although some hon. Members may believe that the codes have disadvantages, the general feeling seems to be that, on the whole, the codes will have considerable advantages.
The right hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris) is in the Chamber. I am glad to know that the proposals set out in my letter to him relating to further protection for the deaf, especially the prelingually deaf, are likely to meet with their approval. That is symptomatic of our purpose. The codes will provide some reassurance that the rights of the public, whether they belong to ethnic groups or to disadvantaged groups, including the disabled, the deaf, those who have difficulty in speaking or the mentally ill, are clearly laid down in the form of codes that will have a significant bearing on the powers of the police while executing their duties. The codes will have force in the disciplinary code for the police which hon. Members have come to realise is a considerable advantage.
However, I trust that the codes include the correct expression of the view of Parliament, as contained in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, that a balance should be struck between the execution in the correct measure of new powers and the duties that Parliament has laid on the police. I assure the House of the extreme care with which the police approached their task, recognising that from 1 January 1986 they will be operating within a context that represents the biggest change in the statutory backing for policing for about 50 years. With those formidable prospects ahead of them, I am confident that they will discharge their duties effectively and well.
I am grateful to the House for accepting the spirit in which the codes were placed before it, and I look forward to the House approving them.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (Codes of Practice) (No. 1) Order 1985, dated 24th October 1985, a copy of which was laid before this House on 30th October, in the last Session of Parliament, be approved.

STATUTORY INSTUMENTS, &c.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 79(5) (Standing Committees on Statutory Instruments, &amp;c.)

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES

That the draft Weights and Measures Act 1963 (Various Foods) (Amendrnent No. 2) Order 1985, which was laid before this House on 20th November, be approved.

HIGHLANDS AND ISLANDS SHIPPING SERVICES

That the draft Undertaking between the Secretary of State for Scotland and Regionfields Ltd. trading as Easdale Island Shipping Line, which was laid before this House on 21st October, in the Last Session of Parliament, be approved—[Mr. Peter Lloyd.]

HOUSE OF COMMONS (SERVICES)

Ordered,

That Mr. A. J. Beith be discharged from the Select Committee on House of Commons (Services) and Mr. James Wallace be added to the Committee.—[Mr. Peter Lloyd.]

EUROPEAN LEGISLATION

Ordered,

That Mr. Gerald Malone be discharged from the Select Committee on European legislation and Mr. Robin Squire be added to the Committee.—[Mr. Peter Lloyd.]

LIAISON COMMITTEE

Ordered,

That Mr. A. J. Beith be dischared from the Liaison Committee and Mr James Wallace be added to the Committee.—[Mr. Peter Lloyd.]

PUBLIC ACCOUNTS

Ordered,

That Dr. John Marek be discharged from the Committee of Public Accounts and Mr. Allan Rogers be added to the Committee.—[Mr. Peter Lloyd.]

Mr. Malcolm Pike

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Peter Lloyd.]

Mr. Nicholas Baker: It is with considerable alarm that I record that it is almost one year since I raised in the House for the first time the case of the detention in Libya of my constituent Malcolm Pike of Blandford St. Mary. I shall outline the background to the matter and, in particular, the developments during the past year of this most unfortunate case. In the light of those developments I shall make a number of recommendations.
I am heartened that the debate is to be answered by my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, North (Mr. Eggar). I was delighted at his recent appointment as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State and I know that that feeling is shared by many of my colleagues. As a Back Bencher he was renowned for the energy and combative nature of his advocacy. I earnestly hope that he will deploy all his skills in assisting me to help my unfortunate constituent.
Whatever help my hon. Friend and his colleagues can give will be vital if this young life is not to drag on in further dusty detention. But, as I have pointed out before, in the years ahead there are likely to be more and more Britons working overseas. That will happen as more and more British industries, manufacturing and service, undertake to join in the fierce competitive battles that are to be waged in overseas markets for the contracts on which our high standard of living depends. I hope that Britons are also increasingly likely to be engaged overseas in a second role, which is the provision of managerial and advisory services to overseas countries. I have mentioned that point before in the House, and I hope that I shall have future occasions on which to expand it. For the present debate it should be sufficient to draw to my hon. Friend's attention the great likelihood of an increasing number of Britons overseas and the necessity for an increased robustness in their protection on the part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and other Government Departments for reasons that will become clear.
Malcolm Pike, who is now 32 years old, worked for Lomond Engineering in Libya between 27 August 1980 and 11 June 1982. He was based in the company's office in Benghazi where he dealt with administrative and financial matters. The company was actively engaged in engineering contracting work in Libya. Mr. Pike worked as an accountant and left Libya in June 1982. He was unemployed for a time and lived at home in Blandford St. Mary in the most beautiful county in Britain.
In May or June 1983 he received a call from Mr. Mohammed Naim Sharafat who is of Pakistani nationality and was then the engineering and general manager of Lomond Engineering Company Ltd. in Libya. Mr. Sharafat asked whether Mr. Pike was interested in returning to work for Lomond Engineering in Tripoli. He explained that on 1 March 1983 the company had been nationalised and all the work and current contracts had been taken over by the National Petroleum Services Company of Libya. They required someone conversant with the company's affairs and accounting procedures. He explained that Mr. Pike would be involved in finalising the claim for compensation with NPSC and in dealings with

the tax office in Benghazi. Mr. Pike, who needed both the job and its salary, accepted the offer and returned to Libya on 24 June 1983.
Mr. Pike's task was to assist in finalising the claim for compensation by Lomond Engineering or its shareholders against the NPSC of Libya and to assist in dealing with its tax affairs. In both those matters his previous experience with the company and knowledge of its affairs was of considerable use.
On arrival he found that there were in Lomond Engineering's offices Mr. Sharafat and a Mr. Ismail Sakhnini, a Palestinian with Swedish nationality. The plan was that one person would go on holiday while the other two stayed in Libya. As Mr. Pike was to discover, this was required because the company had tax liabilities for the years 1980 to 1982, and the tax office in Benghazi had issued a letter to the immigration office there informing it of this liability and instructing it that at all times there should be one representative of Lomond Engineering kept in Libya. In August Mr. Sharafat left for a vacation but did not return. At this time a Mr. Samir Shawa was apparently controlling the company from London. Subsequently Mr. Pike left for a vacation in the United Kingdom but returned in October, whereupon Mr. Sakhnini left.
Despite a number of protestations by him that he would return to Libya to take Mr. Pike's place, he never did. During this time, rent on the company's flat in Libya was not paid and Mr. Pike did not have a company cheque book to enable any salaries, including his own, to be paid. The position of both the company and Mr. Pike became more and more serious.
At that time it became even more difficult for him or, indeed, anyone to contact Mr. Shawa. Mr. Pike was able to arrange for a Mr. Clive Downs to take his place for a short time to enable Mr. Pike to take a holiday to come back to the United Kingdom to try to sort matters out. This was done at the expense of Mr. Pike, who had to pay Mr. Downs to do this. Naturally, Mr. Pike, being a man of honour, returned to Libya to allow Mr. Downs to leave. A third visit was made later when matters became desperate in June 1984.
At this point in the story a Mr. Abbas Bunkheila, a Libyan national at present believed to be residing in the United Kingdom, comes on the scene. He had previously lived in Benghazi and worked with a company entitled Libyan Resources Development, and to him payments were made for assets in Libyan Resources Development and, according to Mr. Shawa, for other reasons.
Mr. Pike was owed the sum of about £16,000 by Lomond Engineering in August 1984 and is undoubtedly owed a good deal more money now.
Lomond Engineering is a company registered in the Cayman Islands, and a firm of what are apparently lawyers provide some of the directors. Lomond Commercial Ltd. is a company registered in the United Kingdom, apparently wholly-owned by Mr. Shawa. While there seems to be no formal connection between the companies, it was apparent to Mr. Pike that the two were run by Mr. Shawa, who certainly took decisions which affected Lomond Engineering.
Mr. Pike was, and remains to this day, detained in Libya without pay and is owed a substantial sum of unpaid salary and expenses. He has relied on the charity of friends and been fortunate, but he is not allowed to leave the country as the Libyan authorities are permitted under Libyan law to detain him as a hostage for the taxation bill


alleged to be owing by Lomond Engineering, the company for which he worked. Mr. Pike himself has no resources. He was never a shareholder in Lomond Engineering or connected with it in any way other than as an employee.
I raised the matter in correspondence with the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Renton). I also raised the matter on the Adjournment on 21 December 1984, when it seemed that there was a possibility that Mr. Sakhnini would be prepared to go back to Libya to take Mr. Pike's place. This proved, as have other promises of such an arrangement, to be false, and since then no effective progress has been made.
Throughout this time Mr. Pike's father, Mr. Frank Pike, has worked tirelessly to try to contact the individuals connected with this company to obtain their help in securing his son's release. All his patient efforts by writing, telephoning, travelling and waiting have come to nothing. He has received no replies to his letters or information or assistance of any kind from these individuals.
I should also say that both Mr. George Anderson and Mr. Hugh Dunnachie of the Foreign Office, as representatives of Her Majesty's Government in Tripoli, have been as helpful as they can. Mr. Dunnachie's efforts to achieve Mr. Pike's release deserve considerable praise. Without his continuing help, Mr. Pike's condition would be even more serious than it is. On behalf of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Pike, I extend the warmest thanks to him and all the Foreign Office staff involved.
This is a murky and mysterious matter and it has involved prolonged correspondence, discussions and negotiations with other companies bearing the Lomond name. These reveal, among other things, that Lomond Engineering has circulated a set of accounts containing a forged opinion. That is not the only thing that needs to be investigated.
It appears that Mr. Sakhnini visited Libya in June this year to try to negotiate the settlement of the company's tax liabilities, but he did not contact Mr. Pike and no arrangements were made to release Mr. Pike from his detention. Apparently, cheques for 260,000 Libyan dinas were issued by the National Petroleum Services Company to Mr. Sakhnini on his visit to Libya, but he failed entirely to use that money, as promised, to secure Mr. Pike's release. It is also apparent that, despite denials, Mr. Sakhnini was appointed as attorney of Lomond Engineering and that he was an employee of the company at one stage.
I have said that the conduct of Mr. Shawa, Mr. Sakhnini and Mr. Bunkheila and Mr. Floyd Cullup, who signed a document appointing Mr. Sakhnini attorney of Lomond Engineering, deserves investigation, and the part played by Mr. Shawa in particular seems utterly reprehensible.
I understand that Mr. Shawa has applied for naturalisation, but purely on the ground that he has apparently brought about the detention of a British citizen in Libya I would regard him as somebody utterly unfit and undesirable to be a naturalised British citizen.
I also understand that there have been suggestions that Mr. Bunkheila and others connected with the company have wished to prolong their stay in the United Kingdom. Notwithstanding the preliminary views of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Waddington), Minister of State, Home Office, in May last

year, I believe that there is now evidence of serious misconduct which should make it unthinkable that anyone connected with this company should be allowed to remain in the United Kingdom.
I am therefore making a plea, on behalf of an anguished Mr. and Mrs. Frank Pike, who have borne the detention of their son with considerable fortitude over a long period of time, that my hon. Friend will take the following action.
First, will my hon. Friend make the strongest representations, through the admittedly limited means available, to the Libyan authorities that my constituent, who has no funds, and no control over the assets of the company, and is of no use to the Libyan authorities, should be allowed to leave Libya forthwith?
Secondly, will my hon. Friend draw the attention of my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State, Home Office, to this debate and ask him to re-examine immediately any requests to stay in or enter the United Kingdom by Messrs. Shawa, Bunkheila, Sakhnini, Cullop and anyone else involved with Lomond Engineering?
Thirdly, will my hon. Friend support and assist any inquiries that may be instituted in connection with some of the more serious aspects of this matter?
My hon. Friend must understand the deep gloom of a family who see their son's continuing detention far from home by heartless and possibly criminal activities of a small number of people. I hope that he will do everything that he can to rescue my constituent from his desperate plight.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Tim Eggar): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, North (Mr. Baker) on obtaining this debate, and on selecting for debate the subject on which he has addressed us so ably. I thank him also for the kind personal remarks that he made about me at the beginning of his speech.
I know that my hon. Friend has been a tireless campaigner on behalf of Mr. Pike, who is one of his constituents. I know, too, that for well over a year Mr. Pike's plight has been distressing both to himself and to his family. My hon. Friend raised this case as long ago as December 1984, and I am deeply sorry that the case is still dragging on. Nobody who listened to that debate almost a year ago would have believed that it could be possible for the case still to be dragging on. I join my hon. Friend in hoping very much that the case will soon be resolved.
Before speaking in more detail about the particular points that were raised by my hon. Friend, I think that it would be appropriate to set out the context both of our own difficult relations with Libya and the generality of the consular protection that we are able to provide across the world. I know that many right hon. and hon. Members have particular cases that they have followed carefully. I hope, therefore, that my general remarks will be of wider interest.
The House will be aware that the United Kingdom broke off diplomatic relations with Libya in April 1984, following the tragic incident in St. James's square, but we have no wish to impede ordinary private contacts or civilian commercial exchanges between Britain and Libya. It was because of the break in diplomatic relations that we decided to allow the Libyans to maintain an interests section in the embassy of its protecting power, Saudi Arabia. This interests section was staffed by two Libyan


officials. Two British consular officials were appointed to constitute the British interests section at the Italian embassy in Tripoli. We are grateful to the Italian Government for agreeing to act as our protecting power in Libya. We are also grateful for the performance of our consular officers in Libya. It is not an easy task. I know that they will be heartened by my hon. Friend's very kind remarks about them.
Many British subjects travelling or working abroad find themselves in difficulties. I have particular sympathy for Mr. Pike, not least because his difficulties lie towards one end of the spectrum in two respects. The first is the severity of his difficulties. The second is the fact that they have been going on for such a long time. The difficulties of many British subjects can be cleared up in a few hours, often without the help of local consular staff, and often even without intervention by the British Government in London. However, those British subjects who need assistance can get it from the Foreign Office in London and from diplomatic service officers in embassies and consulates abroad. My hon. Friend might be interested to know that we have about 290 diplomatic officers abroad who are engaged in full time consular work, and that they are supported by about 137 locally engaged staff.
To give some idea of the problems that are faced by my Department, I should tell the House that about 5 million or 6 million Britons are resident overseas. I cannot be more certain of the number, because many of them do not register with local embassies or high commissions. A further 22 million Britons travel overseas each year—in other words, nearly half the population of the United Kingdom. That figure is about four times as many as travelled abroad 20 years ago.
In the Foreign Office we do our best to keep up with the increasing work load. We shift our staff around to meet peak times throughout the world and we also keep our staff levels under constant review. We support the staff abroad in a number of ways. We have a consular department in London which has staff to call on every day of the year, 24 hours a day, with the exception of Christmas day. The London staff may give advice to people who are going abroad before they leave and then help to solve the problems which sometimes arise after they get there.
I recommend to my hon. Friend, although I am sure that he has seen it, an excellent leaflet entitled "Get it right before you go", which has been widely distributed. It explains in succinct language what we can do and also, I am afraid, what we cannot do. Members of the public who want more detailed advice on specific countries, particularly in such areas as the middle east where local laws and working conditions are very different from those in the United Kingdom, can get that kind of information from our consular department.
I shall tell my hon. Friend what our consuls can and cannot do. They can ensure that a British subject is informed of his legal rights, but they cannot give legal advice themselves. They can ensure that British subjects are treated no worse in prison than are local nationals, but they cannot get people out of prison. In a nutshell, we can help British citizens abroad who fall foul of the law in a given country, but we cannot get another country to change its laws, however different those laws may be from our own.
That provides a backdrop to the specific question of Libya and the tragic case of Mr. Pike. Local law there, as in many other Arab countries, provides that an employee may be held responsible for his firm's debts and should not be allowed to leave the country until the debts are settled. The Government cannot intervene in the process of law in Libya, any more than we would accept attempts by Libya, or another country, to interfere in our law. Nor can we become involved in what is essentially a commercial dispute in which Mr. Pike finds himself, however tragic and sad the circumstances.
Since Mr. Pike returned to Libya 18 months ago, on 8 June 1984, he has been unable to leave the country because he has been held responsible for the tax debts of his employers, Lomond Engineering. Sadly, Lomond Engineering is not a United Kingdom registered company, it does not have a United Kingdom office, and it appears to have deliberately deserted Mr. Pike. I am sure that my hon. Friend is right in saying that the company is responsible for the situation in which Mr. Pike finds himself.
There are cases where British nationals have been, or are currently, prevented from leaving other Arab countries, not Libya, because they are held responsible for their firms' debts. Hundreds of British companies work in the Arab world, and they must arrange that one of their expatriate staff is responsible for the affairs of the company. In doing so, the company recognises that that expatriate can be prevented from leaving if the company incurs debts. However, in all but a tiny minority of cases problems do not arise because the companies either have no debts or negotiate a settlement. As in this case, companies arrange a rota whereby a substitute representative stands in for leave purposes. That practice is entirely acceptable to local authorities.
In addition to the visit to which my hon. Friend referred, a representative of Lomond Engineering visited Libya in April 1985 and received a payment for the company's equipment. That sum was subsequently used to reduce the tax debt, but, sadly, a considerable amount of debt remains outstanding. Interestingly, the Libyan authorities apparently took no action to prevent the representative from leaving Libya.
The Government's scope to assist Mr. Pike is limited. Our British interests section in Tripoli has been supportive of him since his plight was first brought to its attention. It has given such advice and assistance as it properly can. The head of the British interests section has discussed his plight with the Libyan tax authorities on at least six occasions in an endeavour to overcome the problem. The Italian embassy, as the protecting power, has addressed notes to the Libyan authorities requesting that Mr. Pike be granted an exit visa, but without result.
I understand the current position is that a British firm which is highly specialised in Libyan tax matters is preparing a case to present to the Libyan tax authorities in an endeavour to secure Mr. Pike's departure from Libya. I am delighted to say that that firm is doing the work without intending to charge for it.
I am aware, as my hon. Friend said, that Mr. Pike's father has been in contact with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office at intervals throughout the year, and he discussed his son's position with our consul in Tripoli on 6 August when the consul was on leave in the United Kingdom.
Towards the end of his remarks my hon. Friend made three requests. The first was that we should approach the Libyan authorities and do everything within our power to ensure that Mr. Pike is allowed to leave Libya. I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. We shall continue to take every possible opportunity to press the Libyan authorities and to urge them to grant an exit visa, but that, I am afraid, must be within the constraints that I have already explained.
My hon. Friend's second request was that I should draw his speech to the attention of my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State, Home Office. I shall be delighted to do that. I shall also ensure that my hon. and learned Friend is made aware of the information that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has about the case.
Thirdly, my hon. Friend asked that my Department should be willing to assist inquiries about the case and the performance of the company within the United Kingdom. It occurs to me, after hearing what my hon. Friend said,

that it might be worth bringing my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry into this matter to see whether he has any powers, although we must take account of the fact that the company is not United Kingdom registered and his powers may well be limited. However, we shall follow up that point.
I wish to reiterate the sympathy that the Government feel for Mr. Pike. He has, unfortunately, found himself in a kind of limbo. He is not, fortunately, deprived of his liberty within Libya, but he is deprived of his liberty and freedom to leave Libya.
As I have said, I can assure my hon. Friend that we shall continue to do everything that we properly can to assist Mr. Pike. I hope that with the help of the officials in my Department and my colleagues, we can bring his difficulties to an end as soon as possible.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-eight minutes to Eleven o'clock.